Paper detail

CoRoT target HD 51844: a delta Scuti star in a binary system with periastron brightening

The star HD 51844 was observed in CoRoT LRa02 as a Seismo target which turned out to be an SB2 system. The 117 days long light curve revealed delta Scuti pulsation in the range of 6 to 15 d^{-1} where four frequencies have amplitudes larger than 1.4 mmag and a rich frequency spectrum with amplitudes lower than 0.6 mmag. Additionally, the light curve exhibits a brightening event recurring every 33.5 days with a maximum of 3 mmag and a duration of about 5 days. Thus, this star can be considered as a heartbeat candidate. The radial velocities from spectroscopy confirmed an eccentric binary system with nearly identical masses and physical parameters. The brightening event of the light curve coincides with the maximum radial velocity separation showing that the brightening is in fact caused by tidal distortion and/or reflected light. One component displays large line profile variations, while the other does not show significant variation. The frequency analysis revealed a quintuplet structure of the four highest-amplitude frequencies, which is due to the orbital motion of the pulsating star.