KIC 6206751: the first R CMa-type eclipsing binary with $\gamma$ Doradus pulsations

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of the first R CMa-type eclipsing binary with a $\gamma$ Doradus pulsating star, combining detailed observational analysis and frequency studies to reveal tidal excitation of pulsations.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed characterization of an R CMa-type binary with a $\gamma$ Dor pulsator, demonstrating tidal excitation of gravity-mode pulsations in such systems.

Findings

Binary is a short-period semi-detached system with specific masses and radii.

Detected 42 pulsation frequencies, including three identified as high-order gravity modes.

Pulsation frequencies are tidally excited, with ratios indicating resonance with orbital motion.

Abstract

We present the absolute properties of the double-lined eclipsing binary KIC 6206751 exhibiting multiperiodic pulsations. The ${\it Kepler}$ light curve of this system was simultaneously solved with the radial-velocity data given by Matson et al. (2017). The results indicate that the binary star is a short-period semi-detached system with fundamental parameters of $M_1$ = 1.66$\pm$0.04 M$_\odot$, $M_2$ = 0.215$\pm$0.006 M$_\odot$, $R_1$ = 1.53$\pm$0.02 R$_\odot$, $R_2$ = 1.33$\pm$0.02 R$_\odot$, $L_1$ = 5.0$\pm$0.6 L$_\odot$, and $L_2$ = 0.96$\pm$ 0.09 L$_\odot$. We applied multiple frequency analyses to the eclipse-subtracted light residuals and detected the 42 frequencies below 2.5 d$^{-1}$. Among these, three independent frequencies of $f_2$, $f_3$, and $f_4$ can be identified as high-order (38 $\le n \le$ 40) low-degree ($\ell$ = 2) gravity-mode oscillations, whereas the other frequencies may be orbital harmonics and combination terms. The ratios between the orbital frequency and the pulsation frequencies are $f_{\rm orb}$:$f_{\rm 2-4}$ $\simeq$ 2:3, which implies that the $\gamma$ Dor pulsations of the detached primary star may be excited by the tidal interaction of the secondary companion. The short orbital period, and the low mass ratio and $M_2$ demonstrate that KIC 6206751 is an R CMa-type star, which is most likely evolving into an EL CVn star. Of seven well-studied R CMa-type stars, our program target is the only eclipsing binary with a $\gamma$ Dor pulsating component.