Cayden Peters / Physics / Faculty Mentor: Nevin Weinberg
The Kepler binary system KOI-964 consists of a hot white dwarf and an A-type star in an eclipsing 3.3 day circular orbit. The white dwarf raises a strong tide in the A-type star which distorts its shape and induces significant flux perturbations. Wong et al. (2018) analyze long cadence Kepler photometry, and with it successfully explain several features of the observed light curve. However, their model for the tide-induced flux perturbations underestimates the observed amplitude by 45%. We study whether this discrepancy is due to their neglect of internal gravity waves (g-modes) which can be resonantly excited within the A-type star by the tide, i.e. the dynamical tide. We use the stellar evolution code MESA and the stellar oscillation code GYRE-tides to examine the effects of g-mode excitation on the observed light curve.
Cayden P.
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