The outer orbit of the high-mass stellar triple system Herschel 36 determined with the VLTI

TL;DR

This study uses infrared interferometry to determine the orbits and absolute masses of all components in the massive triple star system Herschel 36 A, revealing a modest inclination difference between the inner and outer orbits.

Contribution

First direct measurement of the absolute masses and orbital parameters of all components in Herschel 36 A using VLTI interferometry.

Findings

Derived the absolute masses of the three stars in Herschel 36 A.

Determined the orbital inclination difference between inner and outer orbits.

Provided observational constraints relevant to star formation models.

Abstract

Multiplicity is a ubiquitous characteristic of massive stars. Multiple systems offer us a unique observational constraint on the formation of high-mass systems. Herschel 36 A is a massive triple system composed of a close binary (Ab1-Ab2) and an outer component (Aa). We measured the orbital motion of the outer component of Herschel 36 A using infrared interferometry with the AMBER and PIONIER instruments of ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer. Our immediate aims are to constrain the masses of all components of this system and to determine if the outer orbit is co-planar with the inner one. Reported spectroscopic data for all three components of this system and our interferometric data allow us to derive full orbital solutions for the outer orbit Aa-Ab and the inner orbit Ab1-Ab2. For the first time, we derive the absolute masses of mAa = 22.3 +/- 1.7 M_sun, mAb1 = 20.5 +/- 1.5 M_sun and mAb2 = 12.5 +/- 0.9 M_sun. Despite not being able to resolve the close binary components, we infer the inclination of their orbit by imposing the same parallax as the outer orbit. Inclinations derived from the inner and outer orbits imply a modest difference of about 22 deg. between the orbital planes. We discuss this result and the formation of Herschel 36 A in the context of Core Accretion and Competitive Accretion models, which make different predictions regarding the statistic of the relative orbital inclinations.