The early B supergiant LMC star BI 108 is photometrically variable with a unique light curve; two strong periods are present in an almost precise 3:2 resonance. We collected spectroscopic data at VLT/UVES, sampling the supercycle of 10.733 days in ten epochs. We find spectral signatures for a SB2 system consisting of two massive B1 supergiants orbiting at the orbital period of 5.366 days. The shorter periodicity resembles the light curve of an eclipsing binary with periodicity 3.578 days that is not detected in the data. We discuss possible causes for the short periodicity and conclude that the quadruple system is the more plausible hypothesis.
@article{arxiv.1211.4172,
title = {The quasi-resonant variability of the massive LMC system BI 108},
author = {Zbigniew Kołaczkowski and Ronald Mennickent and Thomas Rivinius and Grzegorz Pietrzyński},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1211.4172},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in MNRAS main journal, 6 pages, 4 figures