Discovery of two new bright magnetic B stars: i Car and Atlas

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of two new bright magnetic B stars, i Car and Atlas, through a spectropolarimetric survey aimed at identifying magnetic stars for asteroseismology and detailed magnetic studies.

Contribution

It presents the first detection of magnetic fields in the bright B stars i Car and Atlas, expanding the catalog of known magnetic massive stars.

Findings

Discovered magnetic fields in i Car and Atlas B stars.

Confirmed magnetic detections with multiple observations.

Identified these stars as prime targets for asteroseismology.

Abstract

The BRITE (BRIght Target Explorer) constellation of nano-satellites performs seismology of bright stars via high precision photometry. In this context, we initiated a high resolution, high signal-to-noise, high sensitivity, spectropolarimetric survey of all stars brighter than V=4. The goal of this survey is to detect new bright magnetic stars and provide prime targets for both detailed magnetic studies and asteroseismology with BRITE. Circularly polarised spectra were acquired with Narval at TBL (France) and HarpsPol at ESO in La Silla (Chile). We discovered two new magnetic B stars: the B3V star i Car and the B8V component of the binary star Atlas. Each star was observed twice to confirm the magnetic detections and check for variability. These bright magnetic B stars are prime targets for asteroseismology and for flux-demanding techniques, such as interferometry.