An Eclipsing 47 minute Double White Dwarf Binary at 400 pc
James Munday, P.-E. Tremblay, J. J. Hermes, Brad Barlow, Ingrid, Pelisoli, T. R. Marsh, Steven G. Parsons, David Jones, S. O. Kepler, Alex, Brown, S. P. Littlefair, R. Hegedus, Andrzej Baran, Elm\'e Breedt, V. S., Dhillon, Martin J. Dyer, Matthew J. Green, Mark R. Kennedy

TL;DR
This paper reports the discovery of a nearby, eclipsing double white dwarf binary with a very short 47-minute orbital period, which is a promising gravitational wave source and will merge in about 41 million years.
Contribution
The paper presents the first detailed characterization of a 47-minute orbital period double white dwarf system discovered by TESS, including mass measurements and gravitational wave prospects.
Findings
Closest eclipsing double WD binary at 400 pc
Orbital decay measurable within 10 years
System will merge in approximately 41 million years
Abstract
We present the discovery of the eclipsing double white dwarf (WD) binary WDJ 022558.21-692025.38 that has an orbital period of 47.19 min. Following identification with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, we obtained time-series ground based spectroscopy and high-speed multi-band ULTRACAM photometry which indicate a primary DA WD of mass 0.40 +- 0.04 Msol and a 0.28 +- 0.02 Msol mass secondary WD, which is likely of type DA as well. The system becomes the third-closest eclipsing double WD binary discovered with a distance of approximately 400 pc and will be a detectable source for upcoming gravitational wave detectors in the mHz frequency range. Its orbital decay will be measurable photometrically within 10 yrs to a precision of better than 1%. The fate of the binary is to merge in approximately 41 Myr, likely forming a single, more massive WD.
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsStellar, planetary, and galactic studies · Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research · Astronomy and Astrophysical Research
