RR Lyrae stars in eclipsing systems - historical candidates

TL;DR

This study reevaluates historical claims of RR Lyrae stars in eclipsing systems, finding that previous evidence was likely due to measurement errors, and presents new analysis of these stars.

Contribution

It provides a detailed reanalysis of old data and introduces a new candidate, RZ Cet, while clarifying the absence of confirmed eclipsing RR Lyrae systems.

Findings

Old data likely contain measurement errors.

No confirmed eclipsing RR Lyrae stars found.

New candidate RZ Cet identified.

Abstract

Discovery of binary systems among RR Lyrae stars belongs to challenges of present astronomy. So far, none of classical RR Lyrae stars was clearly confirmed that it is a part of an eclipsing system. For this reason we studied two RR Lyrae stars, VX Her and RW Ari, in which changes assigned to eclipses were detected in sixties and seventies of the 20th century. In this paper our preliminary results based on analysis of new photometric measurements are presented as well as the results from the detailed analysis of original measurements. A new possible eclipsing system, RZ Cet was identified in the archive data. Our analysis rather indicates errors in measurements and reductions of the old data than real changes for all three stars.