Discover and identify binary stars through serendipitous INTEGRAL/OMC observations
The archive of INTEGRAL's Optical Monitoring Camera (OMC)
continues to be a goldmine for science on serendipitous sources
(see also POM July 2008). A wealth of eclipsing binaries have been
observed and a huge database exists on these sources.
A binary is a system consisting of two stars orbiting around their
center of mass. If they orbit in a plane which is more or less in
our line of sight, the stars go in front of each other regularly,
which produces two eclipses in the light curves (referred to as
primary and secondary eclipses). These systems are called eclipsing
binaries. A famous example of an eclipsing binary is
Algol.
Light curves from eclipsing binaries give powerful tools to provide
information on the parameters of the system, such as the orbital
parameters, the radii of the stars, as well as their mass ratio.
These can be further input for the study of stellar evolution,
and tell us about how stars are formed.
In
a recent paper by P. Zasche (to be published next month in
New Astronomy 14, 129), a first light-curve study is presented
of 20 eclipsing binaries. Most of them are detached systems.
The POM shows a selection of the OMC V-band light curves.
Note that the system ET Vel is an eccentric binary (with e=0.0737).
The red lines show the orbital light curve fits.
Credits: P. Zasche, Astronomical Institute, Prague, Czech Republic
