Photometric variability of candidate white dwarf binary systems from Palomar Transient Factory archival data
Abstract
We present a sample of 59 periodic variables from the Palomar Transient Factory, selected from published catalogues of white dwarf (WD) candidates. The variability can likely be attributed to ellipsoidal variation of the tidally distorted companion induced by the gravity of the primary (WD or hot subdwarf) or to the reflection of hot emission by a cooler companion. We searched 11 311 spectroscopically or photometrically selected WD candidates from three hot star/WD catalogues, using the Lomb–Scargle periodogram to single out promising sources. We present period estimates for the candidates, 45 of which were not previously identified as periodic variables, and find that most have a period shorter than a few days. Additionally, we discuss the eclipsing systems in our sample and present spectroscopic data on selected sources.
Additional Information
© 2016 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. Accepted 2016 June 14. Received 2016 June 14. In original form 2015 September 10. First published online June 16, 2016. Part of this work was performed by TAP while at the Aspen Center for Physics, which is supported by NSF Grant #1066293. WK and KBK were each funded by a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship at the California Institute of Technology. The CRTS survey is supported by the US National Science Foundation under grants AST-0909182. Observations were obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory as part of the PTF project, a scientific collaboration between the California Institute of Technology, Columbia University, Las Cumbres Observatory, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, the University of Oxford, and the Weizmann Institute of Science. Additional observations were obtained using the DBSP spectrograph on the Palomar 200-inch Hale telescope operated by Caltech. We thank Nathaniel Butler for providing the main framework of the L-S python script and Detlev Koester for providing us with his WD model atmospheres. We are in debt to Mike Yang for assisting in the retrieval of CRTS data and Ashish Mahabal for the verification of eclipses in CRTS light curves. Furthermore, the constructive comments from Eric Bellm, Thomas Kupfer, and Avi Shporer are much appreciated. We would also like to thank the referee for careful reading of the manuscript and providing many valuable suggestions that certainly helped improve the paper. WK thanks the productive discussions with Marten van Kerkwijk, as well as the time of Hung Yu (Ben) Ling and Alexander Papanicolaou, who never failed to provide seemingly useless advice that turned out as thought provoking as caffeine. Last but not least, a special mention must go to Yi Cao, Adam Miller, and other members of the iPTF collaboration at Caltech, who generously shared their telescope time with us. This research has made use of the SIMBAD data base, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France, and has benefited much from NASA's Astrophysics Data System.Attached Files
Published - MNRASKao,W.etal.pdf
Submitted - 1606.04627v2.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 71133
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20161017-074029367
- PHY-1066293
- NSF
- Caltech Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF)
- AST-0909182
- NSF
- Created
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2016-10-17Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-11Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Palomar Transient Factory, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences