An extremely hot white dwarf with a rapidly rotating K-type subgiant companion: UCAC2 46706450
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The subgiant UCAC2 46706450 is a late-type star with an ultraviolet (UV) excess. It was considered as a candidate to establish a sample of stars of spectral type F, G, and K with white dwarf (WD) companions that could be used to test binary evolution models. To verify the WD nature of the companion, UV spectroscopy has previously been performed by other authors. Via a detailed model-atmosphere analysis, we show that the UV source is an extremely hot WD with an effective temperature ofTeff= 105 000 ± 5000 K, mass ofM∕M⊙= 0.54 ± 0.02, radius ofR/R⊙= 0.040−0.004+0.005, and luminosity ofL/L⊙= 176−49+55, meaning that the compact object is just about to enter the WD cooling sequence. Investigating spectra of the cool star (Teff= 4945 ± 250 K), we found that it is a K-type subgiant withM∕M⊙= 0.8−2.4,R/R⊙= 5.9−0.5+0.7, andL/L⊙= 19−5+5that is rapidly rotating withvsin(i) = 81 km s−1. Optical light curves reveal a period of two days and ano-band peak-to-peak amplitude of 0.06 mag. We suggest that it is caused by stellar rotation in connection with star spots. With the radius, we infer an extremely high rotational velocity ofvrot= 151−13+18km s−1, thus marking the star as one of the most rapidly rotating subgiants known. This explains chromospheric activity observed by Hαemission and emission-line cores in Ca IIH and K as well as NUV flux excess. From equal and constant radial velocities of the WD and the K subgiant as well as from a fit to the spectral energy distribution, we infer that they form a physical, wide (though unresolved) binary system. Both components exhibit similar metal abundances and show iron-group elements with slightly oversolar (up to 0.6 dex) abundance, meaning that atomic diffusion in the WD atmosphere is not yet active due to a residual, weak radiation-driven wind. Kinematically and from its height above the Galactic plane, the system belongs to the Galactic thick disk, indicating that it is an old system and that the initial masses of both stars were close to 1M⊙.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".