A cyclic bipolar wind in the interacting binary V393 Scorpii

TL;DR

This study investigates the spectroscopic behavior of V393 Scorpii, revealing a bipolar wind modulated by a long photometric cycle, with new insights into its emission features and orbital eccentricity.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed spectroscopic analysis of the long cycle in V393 Scorpii, linking wind variability to the system's photometric behavior and identifying novel emission phenomena.

Findings

Line emission increases during eclipses, originating from bipolar wind.

Long cycle corresponds to modulation of wind strength and emissivity.

Discovery of highly variable chromospheric emission and complex absorption features.

Abstract

V393 Scorpii is a Double Periodic Variable characterized by a relatively stable non-orbital photometric cycle of 253 days. Mennickent et al. argue for the presence of a massive optically thick disc around the more massive B-type component and describe the evolutionary stage of the system. In this paper we analyze the behavior of the main spectroscopic optical lines during the long non-orbital photometric cycle. We study the radial velocity of the donor determining their orbital elements and find a small but significant orbital eccentricity (e = 0.04). The donor spectral features are modeled and removed from the spectrum at every observing epoch using the light-curve model given by Mennickent et al. We find that the line emission is larger during eclipses and mostly comes from a bipolar wind. We find that the long cycle is explained in terms of a modulation of the wind strength; the wind has a larger line and continuum emissivity on the high state. We report the discovery of highly variable chromospheric emission in the donor, as revealed by Doppler maps of the emission lines MgII 4481 and CI 6588. We discuss notable and some novel spectroscopic features like discrete absorption components, especially visible at blue-depressed OI 7773 absorption wings during the second half-cycle, Balmer double emission with V/R-curves showing "Z-type" and "S-type" excursions around secondary and main eclipse, respectively, and H_beta emission wings extending up to +- 2000 km/s. We discuss possible causes for these phenomena and for their modulations with the long cycle.