The loudest stellar heartbeat: Characterizing the most extreme amplitude heartbeat star system

Abstract

We characterize the extreme heartbeat star system MACHO 80.7443.1718 in the Large Magellanic Cloud using Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) photometry and spectroscopic observations from the Magellan Inamori Kyocera Echelle (MIKE) and SOAR Goodman spectographs. MACHO 80.7443.1718 was first identified as a heartbeat star system in the All-Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN) with Porb =32.83 ± 0.008 d. MACHO 80.7443.1718 is a young (∼6 Myr), massive binary, composed of a B0 Iae supergiant with M1 ≈ 35, M⊙ and an O9.5V secondary with M2≈ 16, M⊙ on an eccentric (e = 0.51 ± 0.03) orbit. In addition to having the largest variability amplitude amongst all known heartbeats stars, MACHO 80.7443.1718 is also one of the most massive heartbeat stars yet discovered. The B[e] supergiant has Balmer emission lines and permitted/forbidden metallic emission lines associated with a circumstellar disc. The disc rapidly dissipates at periastron that could indicate mass transfer to the secondary, but re-emerges immediately following periastron passage. MACHO 80.7443.1718 also shows tidally excited oscillations at the N = 25 and N = 41 orbital harmonics and has a rotational period of 4.4 d. © 2021 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society.