Abstract

Context. The Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) effect, a rotational effect in eclipsing systems, provides unique insight into the relative orientation of stellar spin axes and orbital axes of eclipsing binary systems.

Aims. Our aim is to develop a robust method to analyze the RM effect in an eclipsing system with two nearly equally bright components. This gives access to the orientation of the stellar rotation axes and may shed light on questions of binary formation and evolution. For example, a misalignment between the spin axes and the angular momentum of the system could bring the observed and theoretical apsidal motion into better agreement for some systems, including V1143 Cyg.

Methods. High-resolution spectra have been obtained both out of eclipse and during the primary and secondary eclipses in the V1143 Cyg system, using the 0.6m Coudé Auxiliary Telescope (CAT) and the high-resolution Hamilton Echelle Spectrograph at the Lick Observatory. The Rossiter-McLaughlin effect is analyzed in two ways: (1) by measuring the shift of the line center of gravity during different phases of the eclipses and (2) by analysis of the line shape change of the rotational broadening function during eclipses.

Results. We measured the projection of the stellar rotation axes using the rotation effect for both main-sequence stars in an eclipsing binary system. The projected axes of both stars are aligned with the orbital spin within the observational uncertainties, with the angle of the primary rotation axis βp = 0.3 ± 1.5◦, and the angle of the secondary rotation axis βs = −1.2 ± 1.6◦, thereby showing that the remaining difference between the theoretical and observed apsidal motion for this system is not due to a misalignment of the stellar rotation axes. Both methods utilized in this paper work very well, even at times when the broadening profiles of the two stars overlap.

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Physics

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URL: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/phy_fac/355