25th Annual Student Research Conference
Evaluating Claims of Delta Scuti Components in Eclipsing Binary Systems
Miguel A. Fernandez
Dr. Vayujeet Gokhale, Faculty Mentor
An eclipsing binary system is a pair of stars, orbiting a common center of mass, whose brightness appears to vary over time due to periodic eclipses of one star over another. Sometimes, one of the stars is itself a variable star whose changing brightness is due to radial pulsations. In this case, the lightcurve of the system exhibits additional variations superimposed on those due to the eclipses. A Delta Scuti variable is a pulsating star of particular interest to asteroseismologists. A paper by Chaubey (1993) identified variability in the binary system MM Cassiopeiae, concluding that one of the stellar components was a Delta Scuti star. A survey by Dvorak (2009) claims that the binary system V417 Aurigae does not contain a Delta Scuti star. Photometric lightcurves for MM Cas and V417 Aur collected at the Truman State Observatory will be presented which suggest both of these assertions are in error.
Keywords: astronomy, variable star, light curve, delta scuti, photometry, eclipsing binary
Topic(s):Astronomy
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 306-4
Location: MG 1096
Time: 1:45