Author ORCID Identifier
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-2012
Publication Title
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume
423
Issue
4
First Page
3031
Last Page
3038
Abstract
Subluminous B stars come in a variety of flavours including single stars, close and wide binaries, and pulsating and non-pulsating variables. A majority have helium-poor surfaces (helium by number nHe < 1 per cent), whilst a minority have extremely helium rich surfaces (nHe > 90 per cent). A small number have an intermediate surface helium abundance (≈10–30 per cent), accompanied by peculiar abundances of other elements. The questions posed are (i) whether these abundance peculiarities are associated with radiatively driven and time-dependent stratification of elements within the photosphere as the star evolves from a helium-enriched progenitor to become a normal helium-poor sdB star and (ii) whether these phenomena occur only in single sdB stars or are also associated with sdB stars in binaries.
We present a fine analysis of the bright intermediate helium sdB star CPD−20°1123 (Albus 1) which shows it to be cool, for a hot subdwarf, with Teff≈ 23 000 K and with a surface helium abundance ≈17 per cent by number. Other elements do not show extraordinary anomalies; in common with majority sdB stars, carbon and oxygen are substantially depleted, whilst nitrogen is enriched. Magnesium through sulphur appear to be depleted by ≈0.5 dex, but chlorine and argon are substantially enhanced.
We also present a series of radial velocity measurements which show the star to be a close binary with an orbital period of 2.3 d, suggesting it to be a post-common-envelope system.
The discovery of an intermediate helium rich sdB star in a close binary in addition to known and apparently single exemplars supports the view that these are very young sdB stars in which radiatively driven stratification of the photosphere is incomplete.
Recommended Citation
N., Naslim; Geier, S.; Jeffery, C. S.; Behara, N. T.; Woolf, V. M.; and Classen, L., "The helium-rich subdwarf CPD−20°1123: a post-common-envelope binary evolving on to the extended horizontal branch" (2012). Physics Faculty Publications. 52.
https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/physicsfacpub/52
Comments
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: © 2012 The Authors Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2012 RAS. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21012.x