Deriving the orbital properties of pulsators in binary systems through their light arrival time delays

Abstract

We present the latest developments to the phase modulation method for finding binaries among pulsating stars. We demonstrate how the orbital elements of a pulsating binary star can be obtained analytically, that is, without converting time delays to radial velocities by numerical differentiation. Using the time delays directly offers greater precision, and allows the parameters of much smaller orbits to be derived. The method is applied to KIC9651065, KIC10990452, and KIC8264492, and a set of the orbital parameters is obtained for each system. Radial velocity curves for these stars are deduced from the orbital elements thus obtained.