KOI-3278: A Self-Lensing Binary Star System
arXiv:1404.4379 · doi:10.1126/science.1251999
Abstract
Over 40% of Sun-like stars are bound in binary or multistar systems. Stellar remnants in edge-on binary systems can gravitationally magnify their companions, as predicted 40 years ago. By using data from the Kepler spacecraft, we report the detection of such a "self-lensing" system, in which a 5-hour pulse of 0.1% amplitude occurs every orbital period. The white dwarf stellar remnant and its Sun-like companion orbit one another every 88.18 days, a long period for a white dwarf-eclipsing binary. By modeling the pulse as gravitational magnification (microlensing) along with Kepler's laws and stellar models, we constrain the mass of the white dwarf to be ~63% of the mass of our Sun. Further study of this system, and any others discovered like it, will help to constrain the physics of white dwarfs and binary star evolution.
Published in Science. Main text 6 pages, 3 figures. Supplement 16 pages, 7 figures. Code used for analysis is available at http://github.com/ethankruse/koi3278 . Animation showing ingress of the lensing event at https://www.dropbox.com/s/eb3pznxi990vn00/KOI3278_pulse_starspots2_1024.mp4 . Executive summary for non-astronomers available at http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/eakruse/papers.php
References in corpus (65)
- emcee: The MCMC Hammer
- Measuring Reddening with SDSS Stellar Spectra and Recalibrating SFD
- The Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
- PARSEC: stellar tracks and isochrones with the PAdova and TRieste Stellar Evolution Code
- Analytic Lightcurves for Planetary Transit Searches
- Evolution of binary stars and the effect of tides on binary populations
- Comprehensive analytic formulae for stellar evolution as a function of mass and metallicity
- The Dartmouth Stellar Evolution Database
- Improved Age Estimation for Solar-Type Dwarfs Using Activity-Rotation Diagnostics
- GAIA: Composition, Formation and Evolution of the Galaxy
- Common Envelope Evolution: Where we stand and how we can move forward
- Kepler Input Catalog: Photometric Calibration and Stellar Classification
- EXOFAST: A fast exoplanetary fitting suite in IDL
- Revised Stellar Properties of Kepler Targets for the Quarter 1-16 Transit Detection Run
- An Improved Spectroscopic Analysis of DA White Dwarfs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4
- Rotation and differential rotation of active Kepler stars
- A Comprehensive Spectroscopic Analysis of DB White Dwarfs
- Parameter Estimation from Time-Series Data with Correlated Errors: A Wavelet-Based Method and its Application to Transit Light Curves
- White Dwarf Mass Distribution in the SDSS
- Gravitational Microlensing in the Local Group
- The Initial-Final Mass Relation: Direct Constraints at the Low Mass End
- Post-common-envelope binaries from SDSS. IX: Constraining the common-envelope efficiency
- Gravitational Lensing in Astronomy
- Found: The missing blue opacity in atmosphere models of cool hydrogen white dwarfs
- A Revised Effective Temperature Scale for the Kepler Input Catalog
- Stellar Limb-Darkening Coefficients for CoRot and Kepler
- Science performance of Gaia, ESA's space-astrometry mission
- Resonant Post-Newtonian Eccentricity Excitation in Hierarchical Three-body Systems
- Periodic Flux Variability of Stars due to the Reflex Doppler Effect Induced by Planetary Companions
- Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler IV: Planet Sample From Q1-Q8 (22 Months)
- Long-Term Cycling of Kozai-Lidov Cycles: Extreme Eccentricities and Inclinations Excited by a Distant Eccentric Perturber
- A Class of Eccentric Binaries with Dynamic Tidal Distortions Discovered with Kepler
- KOI-54: The Kepler Discovery of Tidally-Excited Pulsations and Brightenings in a Highly Eccentric Binary
- On the alpha formalism for the common envelope interaction
- The age, life expectancy, and space density of Post Common Envelope Binaries
- Detached white dwarf main-sequence star binaries
- Beaming Binaries - a New Observational Category of Photometric Binary Stars
- The effect of common-envelope evolution on the visible population of post-common-envelope binaries
- Transit Analysis Package (TAP and autoKep): IDL Graphical User Interfaces for Extrasolar Planet Transit Photometry
- Origin of apparent period variations in eclipsing post-common-envelope binaries
- Astrophysical Applications of Gravitational Microlensing
- A comprehensive population synthesis study of post-common envelope binaries
- Discovery of the Eclipsing Detached Double White Dwarf Binary NLTT 11748
- The initial-final mass relationship from white dwarfs in common proper motion pairs
- Where are all the Sirius-Like Binary Systems?
- Kepler Observations of Transiting Hot Compact Objects
- The Quasiperiodic Automated Transit Search Algorithm
- A precision study of two eclipsing white dwarf plus M dwarf binaries
- Microlensing of Large Sources
- Occultation and Microlensing
- The Initial-Final Mass Relation among White Dwarfs in Wide Binaries
- Fab Four: When John and George play gravitation and cosmology
- Using M Dwarf Spectra to Map Extinction in the Local Galaxy
- Post-common envelope binaries from SDSS - XVI. Long orbital period systems and the energy budget of CE evolution
- Near-Field Microlensing and Its Effects on Stellar Transit Observations by Kepler
- Gravitational lensing in eclipsing binary stars
- Microlensing of an Elliptical Source by a Point Mass
- Characterizing the Cool KOIs. V. KOI-256: A Mutually Eclipsing Post-Common Envelope Binary
- Detection of Potential Transit Signals in Sixteen Quarters of Kepler Mission Data
- Cool Companions to Hot White Dwarfs
- Properties of the Eclipsing Double-White Dwarf Binary NLTT 11748
- Compact object detection in self-lensing binary systems with a main-sequence star
- Self-Lensing By Binaries
- Finding White Dwarfs with Transit Searches
- Transits and Lensing by Compact Objects in the Kepler Field: Disrupted Stars Orbiting Blue Stragglers
Cited by in corpus (53)
- Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler. VIII. A Fully Automated Catalog With Measured Completeness and Reliability Based on Data Release 25
- Hot subluminous stars
- The California-Kepler Survey. I. High Resolution Spectroscopy of 1305 Stars Hosting Kepler Transiting Planets
- Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler VI: Planet Sample from Q1-Q16 (47 Months)
- Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler. VII. The First Fully Uniform Catalog Based on The Entire 48 Month Dataset (Q1-Q17 DR24)
- A Sun-like star orbiting a black hole
- Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler V: Planet Sample from Q1-Q12 (36 Months)
- Discovery and Validation of Kepler-452b: A 1.6-Re Super Earth Exoplanet in the Habitable Zone of a G2 Star
- Possible X-ray Quasi-Periodic Eruptions in a Tidal Disruption Event Candidate
- Relativistic deflection of background starlight measures the mass of a nearby white dwarf star
- Self-lensing Discovery of a White Dwarf in an Unusually Wide Orbit Around a Sun-like Star
- The White Dwarf Binary Pathways Survey I: A sample of FGK stars with white dwarf companions
- Close detached white dwarf + brown dwarf binaries: further evidence for low values of the common envelope efficiency
- A Catalogue of Potential Post Common Envelope Binaries
- Discovery of three self-lensing binaries from Kepler
- Fourteen new eclipsing white dwarf plus main-sequence binaries from the SDSS and Catalina surveys
- BEER analysis of Kepler and CoRoT light curves: IV. Discovery of four new low-mass white dwarf companions in the Kepler data
- Prospects of Finding Detached Black Hole-Star Binaries with TESS
- Towards a volumetric census of close white dwarf binaries I.Reference samples
- Gravitational Microlensing I: A Unique Astrophysical Tool
- Constraining Mass Transfer Histories of Blue Straggler Stars with COS Spectroscopy of White Dwarf Companions
- The evolution of the self-lensing binary KOI-3278: evidence of extra energy sources during CE evolution
- Modeling Kepler Eclipsing Binaries: Homogeneous Inference of Orbital & Stellar Properties
- Wide post-common envelope binaries from Gaia: orbit validation and formation models
- Observations of Spin-Down in Post-Mast-Transfer Stars and the Possibility for Blue Straggler Gyrochronology
- The first pre-supersoft X-ray binary
- Testing black hole superradiance with pulsar companions
- Re-Evaluating Small Long-Period Confirmed Planets From Kepler
- The White Dwarf Binary Pathways Survey -- IX. Three long period white dwarf plus subgiant binaries
- An Earth-Mass Planet and a Brown Dwarf in Orbit Around a White Dwarf
- The White Dwarf Binary Pathways Survey VII: Evidence for a bi-modal distribution of post mass transfer systems?
- Formation of long-period post-common-envelope binaries I. No extra energy is needed to explain oxygen-neon white dwarfs paired with AFGK-type main-sequence stars
- Predicting the self-lensing population in optical surveys
- Nearby stars as gravitational wave detectors
- Formation of long-period post-common-envelope binaries II. Explaining the self-lensing binary KOI 3278
- The Weird Detector: Flagging periodic, coherent signals of arbitrary shape in time series photometry
- No longer impossible: the self-lensing binary KIC 8145411 is a triple
- Mysterious Dust-emitting Object Orbiting TIC 400799224
- The post-common-envelope binary nucleus of the planetary nebula IC~4776: Neither an anomalously long orbital period nor a Wolf-Rayet binary
- Degeneracy between Lensing and Occultation in the Analysis of Self-lensing Phenomena
- Revised Stellar Parameters for V471 Tau, A Post-common Envelope Binary in the Hyades
- The Mass of the White Dwarf Companion in the Self-Lensing Binary KOI-3278: Einstein vs. Newton
- A Multi-Parameter Degeneracy in Microlensing Events with Extreme Finite Source Effects
- Four New Self-lensing Binaries from Kepler: Radial Velocity Characterization and Astrophysical Implications
- Timing analysis in microlensing
- Analysis of Previously Classified White Dwarf-Main Sequence Binaries Using Data from the APOGEE Survey
- White dwarf eccentricity fluctuation and dissipation by AGB convection
- Apparently ultra-long period radio sources from self-lensed pulsar-black hole binaries
- Modelling Gaia photometry signals of dark halos
- Two unseen massive white dwarf candidates in close binaries
- Parameter estimation from the transit light curve including gravitational lensing effects
- Self-lensing binaries as probes of Supernova physics
- Direct detections of white dwarfs in four WD+dM post-common envelope binaries within 20 pc