Littlefair, S.P. orcid.org/0000-0001-7221-855X, Dhillon, V.S. orcid.org/0000-0003-4236-9642, Marsh, T.R. et al. (3 more authors) (2006) A Brown Dwarf Mass Donor in an Accreting Binary. Science, 314 (5805). pp. 1578-1580. ISSN 0036-8075
Abstract
A long-standing and unverified prediction of binary star evolution theory is the existence of a population of white dwarfs accreting from substellar donor stars. Such systems ought to be common, but the difficulty of finding them, combined with the challenge of detecting the donor against the light from accretion, means that no donor star to date has a measured mass below the hydrogen burning limit. We applied a technique that allowed us to reliably measure the mass of the unseen donor star in eclipsing systems. We were able to identify a brown dwarf donor star, with a mass of 0.052 ± 0.002 solar mass. The relatively high mass of the donor star for its orbital period suggests that current evolutionary models may underestimate the radii of brown dwarfs.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Science. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 25 Aug 2017 15:01 |
Last Modified: | 24 Mar 2018 02:05 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1133333 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1126/science.1133333 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:120582 |