A&A 581, A106 (2015) Astronomy DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201526211 & c ESO 2015 Astrophysics The Araucaria project. Precise physical parameters of the eclipsing binary IO Aquarii D. Graczyk1,2,P.F.L.Maxted3, G. Pietrzynski´ 4,2, B. Pilecki4,2, P. Konorski4, W. Gieren2,1,J.Storm5, A. Gallenne2, R. I. Anderson6,7, K. Suchomska4,R.G.West8, D. Pollacco8, F. Faedi8,andG.Pojmanski´ 4 1 Millenium Institute of Astrophysics, Santiago 22, Chile e-mail: [email protected] 2 Universidad de Concepción, Departamento de Astronomía, Casilla 160-C, Concepción, Chile 3 Astrophysics Group, Keele University, Staffordshire, ST5 5BG, UK 4 Warsaw University Observatory, Al. Ujazdowskie 4, 00-478 Warsaw, Poland 5 Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany 6 Observatoire de Genève, Université de Genève, 51 Ch. des Maillettes, 1290 Sauverny, Switzerland 7 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA 8 Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK Received 29 March 2015 / Accepted 18 June 2015 ABSTRACT Aims. Our aim is to precisely measure the physical parameters of the eclipsing binary IO Aqr and derive a distance to this system by applying a surface brightness – colour relation. Our motivation is to combine these parameters with future precise distance determi- nations from the Gaia space mission to derive precise surface brightness – colour relations for stars. Methods. We extensively used photometry from the Super-WASP and ASAS projects and precise radial velocities obtained from HARPS and CORALIE high-resolution spectra. We analysed light curves with the code JKTEBOP and radial velocity curves with the Wilson-Devinney program. Results. We found that IO Aqr is a hierarchical triple system consisting of a double-lined short-period (P = 2.37 d) spectroscopic binary and a low-luminosity and low-mass companion star orbiting the binary with a period of ∼>25 000 d (∼>70 yr) on a very eccentric orbit. We derive high-precision (better than 1%) physical parameters of the inner binary, which is composed of two slightly evolved main-sequence stars (F5 V-IV + F6 V-IV) with masses of M1 = 1.569 ± 0.004 and M2 = 1.655 ± 0.004 M and radii R1 = 2.19 ± 0.02 and R2 = 2.49 ± 0.02 R. The companion is most probably a late K-type dwarf with mass ≈0.6 M. The distance to the system resulting from applying a (V − K) surface brightness – colour relation is 255 ± 6(stat.)± 6 (sys.) pc, which agrees well with the ipparcos +91 H value of 270−55 pc, but is more precise by a factor of eight. Key words. binaries: eclipsing – binaries: spectroscopic – stars: fundamental parameters – stars: distances – stars: solar-type 1. Introduction known and was firstly used by Stebbins (1910, 1911)tode- rive the surface brightness of the two components of Algol Detached eclipsing binary stars are a very important source and β Aur. Within about 250 pc of the Sun there are ∼100 con- of precise stellar parameters, especially of absolute radii and firmed detached eclipsing binaries with parallaxes measured by masses. It has been proven that such parameters combined with the Hipparcos mission (e.g. Kruszewski & Semeniuk 1999; empirical stellar surface brightness – colour (SBC) relations de- Torres et al. 2010). However, about half of them still lack a de- rived from interferometric measurements (e.g. Kervella et al. tailed analysis of their physical parameters or any analysis at all. 2004; Challouf et al. 2014) result in accurate distance deter- These systems comprise components covering a wide range of minations even to extragalactic eclipsing binaries. Indeed, very spectral types from B1 to K0 that is suitable for calibrating pre- accurate distances to the two Magellanic Clouds determined cise SBC relations in the corresponding colour ranges. The are with the eclipsing binary method have recently been reported several factors that influence the precision of SBC calibrations, (Pietrzynski´ et al. 2013; Graczyk et al. 2014). In this method, the most importantly, 1) the uncertainty on absolute dimensions, es- SBC relation is used as a tool for predicting the angular diame- pecially the radii; 2) trigonometric parallax errors; 3) intrinsic ters of the system components (Lacy 1977). The distance is sim- variability of the star; and 4) zero-point shifts between different ply derived by comparing the absolute diameter of a component photometric systems. with its predicted angular diameter. The method involves sim- Recently, a few catalogues of precise absolute dimension de- ple geometric considerations and is therefore a powerful tool for terminations from eclipsing binaries have been published (Torres measuring distances with a minimum of modelling assumptions. et al. 2010; Eker et al. 2014; Southworth 2014)thatcoverawide However, the procedure may be reversed: using prior knowl- range of temperatures. However, these catalogues show that for edge of the distance to a particular detached eclipsing binary, the purpose of SBC calibration, a precise analysis of new eclips- SBC empirical relations can be derived in a way completely ing binaries is needed. For example, Torres et al. (2010,see independent of interferometry. This basic idea has long been their Fig. 13) listed 15 components from nine systems (EI Cep, Article published by EDP Sciences A106, page 1 of 10 A&A 581, A106 (2015) V422 Cyg, RZ Cha, GX Gem, BW Aqr, DM Vir, CD Tau, stars in the eclipsing binary component of this hierarchical triple AI Phe, and V432 Aur) in a region of Teff –logg plane covering a system. box of 6000–7000 K, 3.6–4.1 dex (F-type subgiants). Despite the number of systems with well-determined masses and radii in this region of parameter space, the calibration of the SBC for these 2. Observations stars is not very reliable because one system lacks a trigono- 2.1. Photometry metric parallax (V442 Cyg), three systems have very low qual- ity trigonometric parallaxes (GX Gem, BW Aqr, and DM Vir), 2.1.1. ASAS the Hipparcos parallax of another system (AI Phe) is incon- The V-band photometry of IO Aqr, publicly available from the sistent with the value derived using the eclipsing binary method ASAS catalogue1 (ACVS; Pojmanski´ 2002), spans from 2001 (Andersen et al. 1988), and one system is magnetically active March 27 to 2009 December 1 and contains 384 good-quality with distortions to the light curve from star spots (V432 Aur). points (flagged “A” in the original data). This photometry was This leaves only five components in three non-active, detached extended by 266 measurements from ASAS-North obtained in a eclipsing binaries with precise absolute dimension determina- second ASAS station on Haleakala, Hawaii. We also have access tions within 250 pc from the Sun, and with secure trigonometric to previously unpublished I-band photometry from the ASAS parallaxes. and ASAS-North catalogues that spans from 1998 August 21 It is believed that parallax uncertainties from Hipparcos to 2009 June 4 and contains 1174 good points. In total we have are dominated by statistical errors – photon statistics (e.g. van four ASAS data sets, two in V band and two in I band. Leeuwen 2007b). For F-type eclipsing binary with a parallax of 4 mas we expect an error of about 1 mas, or in other words, a relative precision of 25%. To improve this, we could average re- 2.1.2. WASP sults from many components over colour√ bins because the statis- IO Aqr (1SWASP J204045.47+005621.0) is one of several mil- tical uncertainty would decrease as N,whereN is the number lion bright stars (8 ∼< V ∼< 13) that have been observed by WASP. of components used in analysis. The WASP survey is described in Pollacco et al. (2006)and The Gaia mission (Perryman et al. 2001) is expected to much Wilson et al. (2008). The survey obtains images of the night sky improve the Hipparcos distances by minimising statistical un- using two arrays of eight cameras, each equipped with a charge- certainties, and for the F-type system mentioned before, the un- coupled device (CCD), 200-mm f/1.8 lenses and a broad-band certainty of the parallax should be at most 0.5% (de Bruijne et al. filter (400–700nm). Two observations of each target field are ob- 2015). The SBC calibration would benefit from such precise and tained every 5–10 min using two 30 s exposures. The data from accurate Gaia parallaxes obtained for a larger number of de- this survey are automatically processed and analysed to identify tached eclipsing binaries. The photometric distances derived for stars with light curves that contain transit-like features that may many of them would also be used as an independent check of indicate the presence of a planetary companion. Light curves are Gaia results (if some significant systematic were to occur). generated using synthetic aperture photometry with an aperture Inhomogeneous photometry causes difficulties with transfor- radius of 48 arcsec. The data for all the stars in each target field mations between different photometric systems and zero-point are processed using the sysrem algorithm (Tamuz et al. 2005) shift uncertainties. The situation somewhat resembles problems to produce differential magnitudes that are partly corrected for occurring with the accurate determination of temperatures and systematic noise trends in the photometry. Data for this study angular diameters using the infrared flux method, where the were obtained between 2006 July 4 and 2010 October 6. main error comes from photometric calibration uncertainties (see discussion in Casagrande et al. 2014). Anticipating highly accurate parallaxes from Gaia (precision better than 1%) and 2.1.3. HIPPARCOS the standard precision of present-day radii determination (better We downloaded the Hipparcos photometry in HP magnitudes then 2%), the systematic error of future SBC calibration would 2 be dominated by photometric and radiative properties of stellar from a public archive .