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Asteroseismic search for invisible binary companions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2016

Hiromoto Shibahashi ,
Simon J. Murphy  and
Donald W. Kurtz
Hiromoto Shibahashi
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan email: shibahashi@astron.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Simon J. Murphy
Affiliation:
Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Stellar Astrophysics Centre, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark email: murphy@physics.usyd.edu.au
Donald W. Kurtz
Affiliation:
Jeremiah Horrocks Institute, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, UK email: dwkurtz@uclan.ac.uk
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Abstract

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Continuous and precise space-based photometry has made it possible to measure the orbital frequency modulation of pulsating stars in binary systems with extremely high precision over long time spans. We present the phase modulation (PM) method for finding binaries among pulsating stars. We demonstrate how the orbital elements of a pulsating binary star can be obtained analytically from photometry alone, without spectroscopic radial velocity measurement. Frequency modulation (FM) caused by binary orbital motion also manifests itself in the Fourier transform, as a multiplet with equal spacing of the orbital frequency. The orbital parameters can also be extracted by analysing the amplitudes and phases of the peaks in these multiplets. We derive analytically the theoretical relations between the multiplet properties and the orbital parameters, and present a method for determining these parameters, including the eccentricity and the argument of periapsis. This, too, is achievable with the photometry alone, without spectroscopic radial velocity measurements. We apply these two methods to Kepler mission data and demonstrate that the results are in good agreement with each other. These methods are used to search for invisible binary companions, including planets and invisible massive objects such as neutron stars and stellar-mass black holes.

Keywords

asteroseismologystars: oscillationstechniques: miscellaneous
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 11 , General Assembly A29B: Astronomy in Focus , August 2015 , pp. 642 - 647
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2016 

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