https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201715203003
Finding binaries from phase modulation of pulsating stars with Kepler
1 University of Tokyo, Department of Astronomy, Tokyo 113-0033, Tokyo, Japan
2 University of Sydney, Sydney Institute for Astronomy, NSW 2006, Australia
3 Aarhus University, Stellar Astrophysics Centre, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
* shibahashi@astron.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp
** simon.murphy@sydney.edu.au
*** tim.bedding@sydney.edu.au
Published online: 8 September 2017
Binary orbital motion causes a periodic variation in the path length travelled by light emitted from a star towards us. Hence, if the star is pulsating, the observed phase of the pulsation varies over the orbit. Conversely, once we have observed such phase variation, we can extract information about the binary orbit from photometry alone. Continuous and precise space-based photometry has made it possible to measure these light travel time effects on the pulsating stars in binary systems. This opens up a new way of finding unseen brown dwarfs, planets, or massive compact stellar remnants: neutron stars and black holes.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2017
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
