High-dispersion spectroscopic monitoring of the Be/X-ray binary A0535+26/V725 Tau I: The long-term profile variability

TL;DR

This study presents four years of optical spectroscopic monitoring of the Be/X-ray binary A0535+26/V725 Tau, revealing long-term V/R variability, reconstructing the disc structure, and detecting a non-axisymmetric, eccentric disc through Doppler tomography.

Contribution

First direct detection of an eccentric, non-axisymmetric Be disc structure using Doppler tomography, revealing a one-armed perturbation in the disc.

Findings

V/R ratio varies with a 500-day period.

H-beta profile varies in phase with H-alpha.

Disc structure shows non-axisymmetric features.

Abstract

We report on optical high-dispersion spectroscopic monitoring observations of the Be/X-ray binary A0535+26/V725 Tau, carried out from November 2005 to March 2009. The main aim of these monitoring observations is to study spectral variabilities in the Be disc, on both the short (a week or so) and long (more than hundreds of days) timescales, by taking long-term frequent observations. Our four-year spectroscopic observations indicate that the V/R ratio, i.e., the relative intensity of the violet (V) peak to the red (R) one, of the double-peaked H-alpha line profile varies with a period of 500 days. The H-beta line profile also varies in phase with the H-alpha profile. With these observations covering two full cycles of the V/R variability, we reconstruct the 2-D structure of the Be disc by applying the Doppler tomography method to the H-alpha and H-beta emission line profiles, using a rigidly rotating frame with the V/R variability period. The resulting disc structure reveals non-axisymmetric features, which can be explained by a one-armed perturbation in the Be disc. It is the first time that an eccentric disc structure is directly detected by using a method other than the interferometric one.