English

A White Dwarf-Main Sequence Binary Unveiled by Time-Domain Observations from LAMOST and TESS

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2022-09-29 v1

Abstract

We report a single-lined white dwarf-main sequence binary system, LAMOST J172900.17+652952.8, which is discovered by LAMOST's medium resolution time-domain surveys. The radial velocity semi-amplitude and orbital period of the optical visible star are measured by using the Palomar 200-inch telescope follow-up observations and the light curves from TESS. Thus the mass function of the invisible candidate white dwarf is derived, f(M2)=0.120±0.003Mf(M_{\rm{2}}) = 0.120\,\pm\,0.003\,M_{\odot}. The mass of the visible star is measured based on the spectral energy distribution fitting, M1M_{\mathrm{1}} = 0.810.06+0.07M0.81^{+0.07}_{-0.06}\,M_{\odot}. Hence, the mass of its invisible companion is M20.63MM_{\rm{2}}\,\gtrsim\,0.63\,M_{\odot}. The companion ought to be a compact object rather than a main-sequence star owing to the mass ratio q=M2/M10.78q = M_{\rm{2}} / M_{\rm 1} \gtrsim 0.78 and the single-lined spectra. The compact object is likely to be a white dwarf except for small inclination angle, i40i\,\lesssim\,40^{\circ}. By using the GALEX NUV flux, the effective temperature of the white dwarf candidate is constrained as TeffWD1200013500T_{\rm eff}^{\rm WD}\,\lesssim\,12000-13500 K. It is difficult to detect white dwarfs which are outshone by their bright companions via single-epoch optical spectroscopic surveys. Therefore, the optical time-domain surveys can play an important role in unveiling invisible white dwarfs and other compact objects in binaries.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2209.13924,
  title  = {A White Dwarf-Main Sequence Binary Unveiled by Time-Domain Observations from LAMOST and TESS},
  author = {Ling-Lin Zheng and Wei-Min Gu and Mouyuan Sun and Zhixiang Zhang and Tuan Yi and Jianfeng Wu and Junfeng Wang and Jin-Bo Fu and Sen-Yu Qi and Fan Yang and Song Wang and Liang Wang and Zhongrui Bai and Haotong Zhang and Chun-Qian Li and Jian-Rong Shi and Weikai Zong and Yu Bai and Jifeng Liu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.13924},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

15 pages, 6 figures, ApJ, 936, 33

R2 v1 2026-06-28T02:15:56.780Z