Geometrical Constraints on the Hot Spot in Beta Lyrae

Abstract

We present results from six years of recalibrated and new spectropolarimetric data taken with the University of Wisconsin's Half-Wave Spectropolarimeter (HPOL) and six years of new data taken with the photoelastic modulating polarimeter (PEMP) at the Flower and Cook Observatory. Combining these data with polarimetric data from the literature allows us to characterize the intrinsic BVRI polarized light curves. A repeatable discrepancy of 0.245 days (approximately 6 hours) between the secondary minima in the total light curve and the polarization curve in the V band, with similar behavior in the other bands, may represent the first direct evidence for an accretion hot spot on the disk edge.

54 Pages, 9 figures, Accepted to ApJ

References in corpus (3)

• First Resolved Images of the Eclipsing and Interacting Binary Beta Lyrae
• Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer Imaging of Line Emission Regions of beta Lyrae Using Differential Phase Referencing
• Phase-dependent X-ray observations of the beta Lyrae system: No eclipse in the soft band

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• Ultraviolet Spectropolarimetry:Conservative and Nonconservative Mass Transfer in OB Interacting Binaries
• 13 Years of P Cygni Spectropolarimetry: Investigating Mass-loss Through H$\alpha$, Periodicity, and Ellipticity
• Photometry of Beta Lyrae in 2018 by the BRITE satellites
• The Complex Circumstellar and Circumbinary Environment of V356 Sgr
• Light-curve instabilities of Beta Lyrae observed by the BRITE satellites
• A Study of H$\alpha$ Line Profile Variations in $\beta$ Lyr
• Cyclic light variations and accretion disk evolution in the LMC eclipsing binary OGLE-LMC-DPV-062
• Formation of magnetized spatial structures in the Beta Lyrae system III. Reflection of magnetically controlled matter in circumbinary structures in helium lines, in particular arising from metastable levels