Two Candidate KH 15D-like Systems from the Zwicky Transient Facility

Kavli Affiliate: Subo Dong

| First 5 Authors: Wei Zhu, Klaus Bernhard, Fei Dai, Min Fang, J. J. Zanazzi

| Summary:

KH 15D contains a circumbinary disk that is tilted relative to the orbital
plane of the central binary. The precession of the disk and the orbital motion
of the binary together produce rich phenomena in the photometric light curve.
In this work, we present the discovery and preliminary analysis of two objects
that resemble the key features of KH 15D from the Zwicky Transient Facility.
These new objects, Bernhard-1 and Bernhard-2, show large-amplitude
($>1.5,$mag), long-duration (more than tens of days), and periodic dimming
events. A one-sided screen model is developed to model the photometric
behaviour of these objects, the physical interpretation of which is a tilted,
warped circumbinary disk occulting the inner binary. Changes in the object
light curves suggest potential precession periods over timescales longer than
10 years. Additional photometric and spectroscopic observations are encouraged
to better understand the nature of these interesting systems.

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