Discovery of a Short Period Pulsator from Istanbul University Observatory

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery and analysis of a new short period Delta Scuti pulsator near the exoplanet host star XO-2, identified through photometric and machine learning methods, with detailed characterization of its properties.

Contribution

The study presents the first identification of a short period Delta Scuti variable in the field of XO-2, combining observational data and machine learning analysis for classification.

Findings

Pulsation period of approximately 0.95 hours.

Star classified as Delta Scuti type with high confidence.

Derived stellar parameters: magnitude 2.76, temperature 7725 K.

Abstract

We report the discovery of a new short period pulsating variable in the field of exoplanet host star XO-2. Variable has been identified while it was being used as a comparison star. In order to verify the variability of the candidate, a follow-up program was carried out. Period analysis of multi-band light curves revealed a very prominent and consistent pulsation periodicity of $P\sim0.95$ hours. Given the variability period, amplitude and the color index, the object is most likely a \emph{Delta Scuti} type variable. Absolute magnitude ($M_{v}$) and the color index $(B-V)_{0}$ of the star determined as $2.76$ and $0.22$, respectively. This $(B-V)_{0}$ of the star corresponds to A7 spectral type with an approximate effective temperature of 7725 K. Machine-learning analysis of the time-series data also revealed that the object is of variable type DSCT with a probability of 78\%.