• DOI:10.1086/592146
• Corpus ID: 17510817

First Resolved Images of the Eclipsing and Interacting Binary β Lyrae

@article{Zhao2008FirstRI,
  title={First Resolved Images of the Eclipsing and Interacting Binary $\beta$ Lyrae},
  author={Ming Zhao and Douglas R. Gies and John D. Monnier and Nathalie D. Thureau and Ettore Pedretti and F. Baron and A. M{\'e}rand and Theo A. ten Brummelaar and Harold A. Mcalister and Stephen T. Ridgway and Nils H. Turner and Judit Sturmann and Laszlo Sturmann and Christopher D. Farrington and P. J. Goldfinger . University of Michigan and . The Chara Array and Georgia State University and . University of St. Andrews and Scotland and UK. and .University of Cambridge and .National Optical Astronomy Observatory and Noao},
  journal={The Astrophysical Journal Letters},
  year={2008},
  volume={684},
  pages={L95 - L98}
}

• Ming Zhao, D. Gies, +20 authors Noao
• Published 7 August 2008
• Physics
• The Astrophysical Journal Letters

We present the first resolved images of the eclipsing binary β Lyrae, obtained with the CHARA Array interferometer and the MIRC combiner in the H band. The images clearly show the mass donor and the thick disk surrounding the mass gainer at all six epochs of observation. The donor is brighter and generally appears elongated in the images, the first direct detection of photospheric tidal distortion due to Roche lobe filling. We also confirm expectations that the disk component is more elongated than the donor and is relatively fainter at this wavelength. Image analysis and model fitting for each epoch were used for calculating the first astrometric orbital solution for β Lyrae, yielding precise values for the orbital inclination and position angle. The derived semimajor axis also allows us to estimate the distance of β Lyrae; however, systematic differences between the models and the images limit the accuracy of our distance estimate to about 15%. To address these issues, we will need a more physical, self-consistent model to account for all epochs as well as the multiwavelength information from the eclipsing light curves.