Reddened Dimming of Boyajian's Star Supports Internal Storage of Its "Missing" Flux

Abstract

Two recent short term dimmings of KIC 8462852 (Boyajian's Star) exhibit clear reddening in the B, r' and i' photometric passbands. We show that the intensity ratios of the three pass bands agree well with cooling of an approximately 6800 K black body by about 30K. This agreement, together with other recent findings on the timing and longer term dimmings of this star, support our previous argument that the star's photometric behavior is caused by internal storage of impeded convective flux, rather than by external sources of obscuration such the ISM or circumstellar material.