Charles Explorer logo
🇬🇧

THE THREE-BODY SYSTEM delta CIRCINI

Publication at Faculty of Mathematics and Physics |
2014

Abstract

Delta Cir is known as an O7.5 III eclipsing and spectroscopic binary with an eccentric orbit. Penny et al. discovered the presence of a third component in the IUE spectra.

The eclipsing binary and the third body revolve around a common center of gravity with a period of 1644 days in an eccentric orbit with a semimajor axis of 10 AU. We demonstrate the presence of apsidal-line rotation with a period of approximate to 141 yr, which is considerably longer than its theoretically predicted value, based on the published radii of the binary components derived from the Hipparchos H-p light curve.

However, our new solution of the same light curve resulted in smaller radii and better agreement between the observed and predicted period of the apsidal-line advance. There are indications that the third body is a binary.

The object was resolved by VLTI using the PIONIER combiner; in 2012 June, the separation was 3.78 mas with magnitude difference in the H region 1.(m)75. This result means that (assuming a distance of 770 pc) the inclination of the long orbit is 87.degrees 7.