A&A 586, A146 (2016) Astronomy DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201526552 & c ESO 2016 Astrophysics Looking on the bright side: The story of AA Doradus as revealed by its cool companion M. Vuckoviˇ c´1,5, R. H. Østensen2, P. Németh2,3, S. Bloemen2,4, and P. I. Pápics2 1 Instituto de Física y Astronomía, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Valparaíso, Gran Bretaña 1111, Playa Ancha, 2360102 Valparaíso, Chile e-mail:
[email protected] 2 Instituut voor Sterrenkunde, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, 3001 Leuven, Belgium 3 Dr. Karl-Remeis-Observatory & ECAP, Astronomical Institute, F.-A.-U. Erlangen-Nürnberg, 96049 Bamberg, Germany 4 Department of Astrophysics, IMAPP, Radboud University Nijmegen, PO Box 9010, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands 5 Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade, Volgina 7, 11060 Belgrade, Serbia Received 18 May 2015 / Accepted 1 October 2015 ABSTRACT The effects of irradiation on the secondary stars of close binary systems are crucial for reliably determining the system parameters and for understanding the close binary evolution. They affect the stellar structure of the irradiated star and are reflected in the appearance of characteristic features in the spectroscopic and photometric data of these systems. We aim to study the light that originates from the irradiated side of the low-mass component of a close binary eclipsing system, which comprises a hot subdwarf primary and a low mass companion, to precisely interpret their high precision photometric and spectroscopic data, and accurately determine their system and surface parameters. We reanalyse the archival high-resolution time-resolved VLT/UVES spectra of AA Dor system, where irradiation features have already been detected.