First early-type magnetic star in an eclipsing binary detected

Astronomers report the discovery of the first known early-type magnetic star in an eclipsing binary system. The finding, detailed in a paper published April 27 on the arXiv pre-print server, could have important implications for our understanding of the evolutionary process of binary stars.

Early-type magnetic stars are almost absent in close binary systems, and no such star was found in an eclipsing binary by previous studies. Astronomers propose several theories that could explain this scarcity. For instance, some researchers assume that the presence of a strong global primordial magnetic field inhibits protostellar cloud fragmentation, what disfavors formation of multiple systems.

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Credit: Kochukhov et al., 2018

Magnetic field topology of the primary component of HD 66051. Distribution of the radial magnetic field component (colour plot) and the field vector orientation (red and blue vectors) are shown at four rotation phases. The field strength is given in gauss. The star is shown at the inclination angle of 86 degrees.

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Simulation of an eclipsing binary star system.