Binarity and Accretion in AGB Stars: HST/STIS Observations of UV Flickering in Y Gem

TL;DR

This study presents UV spectroscopic evidence of active accretion and binarity in Y Gem, revealing flickering and high-velocity outflows indicative of a hot accretion disk around a low-mass companion.

Contribution

First direct UV evidence of accretion-driven activity and binarity in Y Gem, supporting Roche lobe overflow as the accretion mechanism in AGB stars.

Findings

UV flickering indicates active accretion disk

High-velocity outflows support a low-mass companion

Roche lobe overflow likely drives accretion in Y Gem

Abstract

Binarity is believed to dramatically affect the history and geometry of mass loss in AGB and post-AGB stars, but observational evidence of binarity is sorely lacking. As part of a project to search for hot binary companions to cool AGB stars using the GALEX archive, we discovered a late-M star, Y Gem, to be a source of strong and variable UV and X-ray emission. Here we report UV spectroscopic observations of Y Gem obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope that show strong flickering in the UV continuum on time-scales of <~20 s, characteristic of an active accretion disk. Several UV lines with P-Cygni-type profiles from species such as Si IV and C IV are also observed, with emission and absorption features that are red- and blue- shifted by velocities of ~500 km/s from the systemic velocity. Our model for these (and previous) observations is that material from the primary star is gravitationally captured by a companion, producing a hot accretion disk. The latter powers a fast outflow that produces blue-shifted features due to absorption of UV continuum emitted by the disk, whereas the red-shifted emission features arise in heated infalling material from the primary. The outflow velocities support a previous inference by Sahai et al. (2015) that Y Gem's companion is a low-mass main-sequence star. Blackbody fitting of the UV continuum implies an accretion luminosity of about 13 Lsun and thus a mass-accretion rate >5e-7 Msun/yr; we infer that Roche lobe overflow is the most likely binary accretion mode for Y Gem.