Apsidal motions of 90 eccentric binary systems in the Small Magellanic Cloud

  • Published : 2016.04.12

Abstract

We examined thousands of light curves of stars brighter than 18.0 mag in I band and less than mean magnitude error of 0.1 mag in V band from the OGLE-III eclipsing binary catalogue, and found 90 new binary systems exhibiting apsidal motion. In this study, the samples of apsidal motion stars in the SMC were increased by 250 percent than previously known. In order to determine the period of the apsidal motion for the binaries, we analysed in detail both light curves and eclipse timings using the MACHO and OGLE photometric database obtained for about 20 yrs. For the eclipse timing diagrams of the systems, new times of minimum light were derived from the full light curve combined at intervals of one yr from the survey data. The binaries presented in this paper have apsidal motion periods in the range of 12-918 yrs. An additional short-term oscillation was detected in five systems (OGLE-SMC-ECL-1634, 1947, 3035, 4946, and 5382), which most likely arise from the existence of a third body orbiting each eclipsing binary. All of the selected systems can be used for the statistical study of the interior structure of the stars in the SMC through their apsidal motions due to the homogeneous data and consistent analysis methods.

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