* Astronomy

Title: 2MASS J05162881+2607387: A New Low-Mass Double-Lined Eclipsing Binary
Authors: Amanda J. Bayless, Jerome A. Orosz (San Diego State University)

Researchers show that the star known as 2MASS J05162881+2607387 (hereafter J0516) is a double-lined eclipsing binary with nearly identical low-mass components. The spectroscopic elements derived from 18 spectra obtained with the High Resolution Spectrograph on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope during autumn 2005 are K_1=88.45 ±0.48 km/s and K_2=90.43 ±0.60 km/s, resulting in a mass ratio of q=K_1/K_2 = 0.978 ±0.018 and minimum masses of M_1 sin³ i=0.775 ±0.016 solar masses and M_2 sin³ i=0.759 ±0.012 solar masses, respectively.
The researchers have extensive differential photometry of J0516 obtained over several nights between 2004 January-March (epoch 1) and 2004 October-2005 January plus 2006 January (epoch 2) using the 1m telescope at the Mount Laguna Observatory. The source was roughly 0.1 mag brighter in all three bandpasses during epoch 1 when compared to epoch 2. Also, phased light curves from epoch 1 show considerable out-of-eclipse variability, presumably due to bright spots on one or both stars. In contrast, the phased light curves from epoch 2 show little out-of-eclipse variability. The light curves from epoch 2 and the radial velocity curves were analysed using their ELC code with updated model atmospheres for low-mass stars. They find the following: M_1=0.787 ±0.012 solar masses, R_1=0.788 ±0.015 solar radii, M_2=0.770 ±0.009 solar masses, and R_2=0.817 ±0.010 solar radii. The stars in J0516 have radii that are significantly larger than model predictions for their masses, similar to what is seen in a handful of other well-studied low-mass double-lined eclipsing binaries.
The researchers compiled all recent mass and radius determinations from low-mass binaries and determine an empirical mass-radius relation of the form R = 0.0324 + 0.9343M + 0.0374M², where the quantities are in solar units.

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