paper

Beyond binarity in A stars II. Disentangling the four stars in the vicinity of the triple HIP 87813 within the quintuple system HJ2814

arXiv:2204.08493 · doi:10.1093/mnras/stad873

Abstract

A-stars are the progenitors of about half of the white dwarfs (WDs) that currently exist. The connection between the multiplicity of A-stars and that of WDs is not known and both multiplicities are still poorly explored. We are in the process of obtaining tight constraints on a sample of 108 southern A-type stars that are part of the nearby VAST sample \citep{DeRosa14} by conducting near-infrared interferometric follow-up observations to the (twenty) stars among them which have large - accelerations. In this paper, we combine spectroscopy, adaptive optics imaging, NIR interferometry and - astrometry in order to disentangle the stars in the complicated HIP 87813 = HJ2814A system. We show that (i) a previously discovered faint star that is separated by 2" from the A star is actually a background source; (ii) the - acceleration is caused by a newly discovered star that was missed in previous AO images and we solve for its astrometric orbit; (iii) by combining previously obtained spectra we show that the A star has a very close companion on a 13.4-day period orbit. The radial velocity curve combined with NIR interferometry constrains its orbit allowing Kozai-Lidov oscillations in the hierarchical triple to be ruled out. The system HJ2814 is one of only about fifteen known 5+ systems with an A star primary, and will result in a system of between two to five bound WDs within around a Hubble time.

arXiv commentto be submitted to A&A; comments welcome

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