Epsilon Aurigae: An improved spectroscopic orbital solution

TL;DR

This paper provides an improved spectroscopic orbital solution for Epsilon Aurigae, combining 20 years of observations with historical data to refine the orbital period, eccentricity, and eclipse predictions.

Contribution

It presents a new, more accurate orbital solution for Epsilon Aurigae by integrating recent and historical spectroscopic data, enhancing eclipse timing predictions.

Findings

Orbital period of approximately 27.1 years with high precision.

Eccentricity of the orbit is about 0.227.

Predicted eclipse mid-date is August 5, 2010.

Abstract

A rare eclipse of the mysterious object Epsilon Aurigae will occur in 2009-2011. We report an updated single-lined spectroscopic solution for the orbit of the primary star based on 20 years of monitoring at the CfA, combined with historical velocity observations dating back to 1897. There are 518 new CfA observations obtained between 1989 and 2009. Two solutions are presented. One uses the velocities outside the eclipse phases together with mid-times of previous eclipses, from photometry dating back to 1842, which provide the strongest constraint on the ephemeris. This yields a period of 9896.0 +/- 1.6 days (27.0938 +/- 0.0044 years) with a velocity semi-amplitude of 13.84 +/- 0.23 km/s and an eccentricity of 0.227 +/- 0.011. The middle of the current on-going eclipse predicted by this combined fit is JD 2,455,413.8 +/- 4.8, corresponding to 2010 August 5. If we use only the radial velocities, we find that the predicted middle of the current eclipse is nine months earlier. This would imply that the gravitating companion is not the same as the eclipsing object. Alternatively, the purely spectroscopic solution may be biased by perturbations in the velocities due to the short-period oscillations of the supergiant.