Is Mira B a low mass white dwarf?
Abstract
We report photometric observations in Johnson B and V bands of the short term variability (flickering) of Mira (omicron Ceti). The observations were performed during 7 nights in the period August - October 2025, in the course of the last minimum of the Mira pulsations. The observed peak-to-peak amplitude of the flickering is 0.11-0.28 mag in B band. For the flickering source we find luminosity in the range 0.10-0.46 L_sun. Using the amplitude-flux relation, we estimate an average luminosity of the accretion disc L_d = 0.91 +/- 0.28 L_sun. Assuming that the white dwarf accretes material through Wind Roche Lobe Overflow (WRLOF), we find that Mira B is a low mass white dwarf with M_wd = 0.24 +/- 0.04 M_sun accreting at a rate 6.8x10^{-9} M_sun/yr. This value of the mass is in the range of the extremely low mass white dwarfs. The data are available on Zenodo: zenodo.org/records/18756532
Cite
@article{arxiv.2602.21725,
title = {Is Mira B a low mass white dwarf?},
author = {R. K. Zamanov and V. Irincheva and B. Spassov and A. Kurtenkov and D. Marchev and M. Minev and M. F. Bode and L. Dankova and B. Borisov and M. Dechev and G. Yordanova},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.21725},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
MNRAS (accepted)