Binarity in cool asymptotic giant branch stars: a Galex search for ultraviolet excesses
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2008
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American Astronomical Society
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Abstract
The search for binarity in AGB stars is of critical importance for our understanding of how planetary nebulae acquire the dazzling variety of aspherical shapes which characterizes this class. However, detecting binary companions in such stars has been severely hampered due to their extreme luminosities and pulsations. We have carried out a small imaging survey of AGB stars in ultraviolet light (using GALEX), where these cool objects are very faint, in order to search for hotter companions. We report the discovery of significant far-ultraviolet excesses toward nine of these stars. The far-ultraviolet excess most likely results either directly from the presence of a hot binary companion or indirectly from a hot accretion disk around the companion.
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© 2008. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. We would like to thank an anonymous referee for his/ her thoughtful review of our paper. We acknowledge discussions with Patrick Morrissey related to the possibility of red leaks in the GALEX FUV and NUV bands. R. S.' s contribution to the research described in this publication was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA. R. S. thanks NASA for financial support via a GALEX award and an LTSA award. K. F. was partially funded by a SURF scholarship and through the Cornell Presidential Research Scholars (CPRS) program. A. G. d. P. is partially financed by the Spanish Ramón y Cajal program and the Programa Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofísica under grant AYA 2006-02358. C. S. C. is partially funded for this work by the Spanish MCyT under project AYA 2006-14876 and the Spanish MEC under project PIE 200750I028.