Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 475, Issue 4, Pages 5417-5423Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/sty157
Keywords
binaries: close; stars: early-type; stars: individual: eta Car, CPD-59 degrees 2628; stars: oscillations; stars: winds, outflows
Categories
Funding
- Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG)
- University of Vienna
- Technical University of Graz
- Canadian Space Agency (CSA)
- University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS)
- Foundation for Polish Science & Technology (FNiTP MNiSW)
- National Science Centre (NCN)
- SPUB grant by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MNiSW)
- University of Toledo
- Helen Luedtke Brooks Endowed Professorship
- NASA [78249]
- CONACYT [252499]
- NCN [2016/21/B/ST9/01126, 2016/21/D/ST9/00656]
- NSERC (Canada)
- FQRNT (Quebec)
- FAPESP Foundation
- Polish National Science Center (NCN) [2015/18/A/ST9/00578]
- NSERC
- Austrian Fonds zur Forderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF) [V431-NBL]
- Austrian Space Application Programme (ASAP) of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
eta Car is a massive, eccentric binary with a rich observational history. We obtained the first high-cadence, high-precision light curves with the BRITE-Constellation nanosatellites over 6 months in 2016 and 6 months in 2017. The light curve is contaminated by several sources including the Homunculus nebula and neighbouring stars, including the eclipsing binary CPD-59 degrees 2628. However, we found two coherent oscillations in the light curve. These may represent pulsations that are not yet understood but we postulate that they are related to tidally excited oscillations of eta Car's primary star, and would be similar to those detected in lower mass eccentric binaries. In particular, one frequency was previously detected by van Genderen et al. and Sterken et al. through the time period of 1974-1995 through timing measurements of photometric maxima. Thus, this frequency seems to have been detected for nearly four decades, indicating that it has been stable in frequency over this time span. These pulsations could help provide the first direct constraints on the fundamental parameters of the primary star if confirmed and refined with future observations.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available