Using a new spectral disentangling approach to ascertain whether the massive binary HDE 228766 contains a Wolf-Rayet star

TL;DR

This study employs a novel spectral disentangling method to accurately classify the components of the binary HDE 228766, revealing the secondary's transitional Wolf-Rayet characteristics and evidence of episodic mass loss.

Contribution

Introduction of a new spectral disentangling approach that provides artefact-free spectra and more precise classifications of binary star components.

Findings

The secondary star shows early Wolf-Rayet features indicating a transition stage.

Detection of variable emission features suggesting episodic mass loss.

Spectral classifications: O7.5 V((f))z for primary, O6 Iaf for secondary.

Abstract

The massive binary HDE 228766 is composed of an O type primary and an evolved secondary. However, previous qualitative analyses of the composite spectrum have led to a wide discussion about whether the secondary is an Of or a Wolf-Rayet star. We use new observations and our novel QER20 package to disentangle for the first time the spectra of the two stellar components and obtain artefact free reconstructed spectra, yielding the more accurate and reliable spectral classifications of O7.5 V((f))z for the primary and O6 Iaf for the secondary. The emission features of the P-Cygni profiles of the H\b{eta} and He I 5876 {\AA} lines, present in the reconstructed spectrum of the secondary, show that this star is at an initial phase of its transition to the WN evolutionary stage. A previously unobserved variable emission, composed of at least four independent features, is seen since 2014 superposed to the H{\gamma} absorption line. Our analysis reveals that these emission features originate from a physically extended region. This could be explained by an episode of enhanced mass-loss in the scenario of a non conservative evolution of the binary.