A recent study by astronomers in Chile, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters, suggest that RR Lyrae stars are not as lonely as we once thought, according to a press release.
Binary systems are important in astrophysics "as their properties can be inferred with unparalleled accuracy from detailed analysis of their orbital properties," according to the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). The lack of RR Lyrae in binary systems has made pinpointing their key characteristics more difficult. Theory has been used to fill the gap in knowledge.
An international research team led by experts of the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS) and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile's Institute of Astrophysics (IA-PUC) have found evidence that these stars may not reject companionship as readily as initially thought. The team identified "as many as 20 candidate RR Lyrae binaries -- an increase of up to 2,000% with respect to previous tallies," according to the RAS. "Twelve of those candidates have enough measurements to conclude with high confidence that they do indeed consist of two stars orbiting each other."
"Our measurements were based on data published by the Polish OGLE Project," continued Hajdu, according to the press release. "The OGLE team have obtained their data using the 1.3m Warsaw telescope, located in Las Campanas Observatory, northern Chile, repeatedly observing the same patches of the sky for many years. Our 20 candidates were found analyzing the roughly 2,000 best observed RR Lyrae stars towards the central parts of the Milky Way. That's about 5% of the known ones. It was only thanks to the high quality of the OGLE data and the long timespan of these observations that we could finally find signs of companions around so many of these stars."
