English

Deep Long Asymmetric Occultation in EPIC 204376071

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2019-03-06 v1

Abstract

We have discovered a young M star of mass 0.16M0.16\,M_\odot and radius 0.63R0.63\,R_\odot, likely in the Upper Sco Association, that exhibits only a single 80%80\% deep occultation of 1-day duration. The star has frequent flares and a low-amplitude rotational modulation, but is otherwise quiet over 160 days of cumulative observation during K2 Campaigns C2 and C15. We discuss how such a deep eclipse is not possible by one star crossing another in any binary or higher-order stellar system in which no mass transfer has occurred. The two possible explanations we are left with are (1) orbiting dust or small particles (e.g., a disk bound to a smaller orbiting body, or unbound dust that emanates from such a body); or (2) a transient accretion event of dusty material near the corotation radius of the star. In either case, the time between such occultation events must be longer than \sim80 days. We model a possible orbiting occulter both as a uniform elliptically shaped surface (e.g., an inclined circular disk) and as a `dust sheet' with a gradient of optical depth behind its leading edge. The required masses in such dust features are then 3×1019\gtrsim 3 \times 10^{19} g and 1019\gtrsim 10^{19} g, for the two cases, respectively.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1902.08152,
  title  = {Deep Long Asymmetric Occultation in EPIC 204376071},
  author = {S. Rappaport and G. Zhou and A. Vanderburg and A. Mann and M. H. Kristiansen and K. Olah and T. L. Jacobs and E. Newton and M. R. Omohundro and D. LaCourse and H. M. Schwengeler and I. A. Terentev and D. W. Latham and A. Bieryla and M. Soares-Furtado and L. G. Bouma and M. J. Ireland and J. Irwin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1902.08152},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

14 pages, 8 figures, and 5 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

R2 v1 2026-06-23T07:47:24.194Z