The Sirius System and Its Astrophysical Puzzles: Hubble Space Telescope and Ground-based Astrometry

By H. Bond, H. E. Bond, Gail Schaefer, R. L. Gilliland, J. Holberg, Brian D. Mason, I. W. Lindenblad, M. Seitz-McLeese, W. D. Arnett, P. Demarque and 5 more. 2017

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Sirius, the seventh-nearest stellar system, is a visual binary containing the metallic-line A1 V star Sirius A, the brightest star in the sky, orbited in a 50.13 year period by Sirius B, the brightest and nearest white dwarf (WD). Using images obtained over nearly two decades with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), along with photographic observations covering almost 20 years and nearly 2300 historical measurements dating back to the 19th century, we determine precise orbital elements for the visual binary. Combined with the parallax and the motion of the A component, these elements yield dynamical masses of and for Sirius A and B, respectively. Our precise HST astrometry rules out third bodies orbiting either star in the system, down to masses of ∼15– . The location of Sirius B in the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram is in excellent agreement with theoretical cooling tracks for WDs of its dynamical mass, and implies a cooling age of ∼126 Myr. The position of Sirius B on the mass–radius plane is also consistent with WD theory, assuming a carbon–oxygen core. Including the pre-WD evolutionary timescale of the assumed progenitor, the total age of Sirius B is about 228 ± 10 Myr. We calculated evolutionary tracks for stars with the dynamical mass of Sirius A, using two independent codes. We find it necessary to assume a slightly subsolar metallicity, of about , to fit its location on the luminosity–radius plane. The age of Sirius A based on these models is about 237–247 Myr, with uncertainties of ±15 Myr, consistent with that of the WD companion. We discuss astrophysical puzzles presented by the Sirius system, including the probability that the two stars must have interacted in the past, even though there is no direct evidence for this and the orbital eccentricity remains high.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f65157b9f1901a381cfb2413caa1a430d2423da4

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Citations in the corpus

The White Dwarf Initial–Final Mass Relation for Progenitor Stars from 0.85 to 7.5 M⊙ (2018, methodology): “For example, in addition their age analysis using luminosity, Teff , and radius, Bond et al. (2017) found that a Y2 isochrone of appropriate metallicity ([Fe/H]=–0.07; Z=0.0156) measures the absolute magnitude and B–”
Binary Star Orbits. V. The Nearby White Dwarf/Red Dwarf Pair 40 Eri BC (2017, background): “For example, in the case of Sirius B the results are slightly discrepant with a dynamical mass of 1.018±0.011 M⊙(Bond et al. 2017) and a mass from the gravitational redshift of 0.978±0.005 M⊙(Barstow et al. 2005).”