Iota Orionis: The Most Massive Hearbeat

Herbert Pablo ( Université de Montréal )

Heartbeat stars are a unique class of binary stars defined characteristic dip and spike around periastron. This is caused when the eccentricity is high and the stars are actually close enough to cause significant tidal effects. While these stars have been theorized for over 20 years, it was not until the Kepler mission that any star was known to show this effect. With data from BRITE-constellation project we have now found the most one such heartbeat : Iota Orionis. After extensive binary modeling of this system we can confirm that this is the most massive heartbeat system that has yet been discovered. We will also discuss the frequency analysis of this system which shows clear tidally induced pulsations that, to our knowledge, have never been seen in an O star before.