Hot subdwarfs - Small stars marking important events in stellar evolution

TL;DR

This paper investigates hot subdwarfs as key indicators of critical stellar evolution events, emphasizing binary interactions, substellar companions, and their role in supernova progenitors and hypervelocity stars.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive study of close binary sdBs, highlighting the significance of star-substellar interactions and identifying a potential supernova progenitor system.

Findings

Discovery of sdB binaries with brown dwarf companions.

Identification of an sdB-white dwarf binary as a supernova progenitor candidate.

Connection between hypervelocity hot subdwarfs and supernova events.

Abstract

Hot subdwarfs are considered to be the compact helium cores of red giants, which lost almost their entire hydrogen envelope. What causes this enormous mass loss is still unclear. Binary interactions are invoked and a significant fraction of the hot subdwarf population is indeed found in close binaries. In a large project we search for the close binary sdBs with the most and the least massive companions. Significantly enhancing the known sample of close binary sdBs we performed the first comprehensive study of this population. Triggered by the discovery of two sdB binaries with close brown dwarf companions in the course of this project, we were able to show that the interaction of stars with substellar companions is an important channel to form sdB stars. Finally, we discovered a unique and very compact binary system consisting of an sdB and a massive white dwarf, which qualifies as progenitor candidate for a supernova type Ia. In addition to that, we could connect those explosions to the class of hypervelocity hot subdwarf stars, which we consider as the surviving companions of such events. Being the stripped cores of red giants, hot subdwarfs turned out to be important markers of peculiar events in stellar evolution ranging all the way from star-planet interactions to the progenitors of stellar explosions used to measure the expansion of our Universe.