No evidence of a sudden change of spectral appearance or magnetic field strength of the O9.7V star HD 54879

G. A. Wade (1) , S. Bagnulo (2) , Z. Keszthelyi (3) , C. P. Folsom (4) , Evelyne Alecian (5) , N. Castro (6) , A. David-Uraz (7) , L. Fossati (8) , V. Petit (7) , M. E. Shultz (7) , J. Sikora (9)

1 RMCC - Royal Military College of Canada
2 Armagh Observatory [Armagh]
3 AI PANNEKOEK - Astronomical Institute Anton Pannekoek
4 IRAP - Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie
5 OSUG - Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble
6 AIP - Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam
7 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Delaware
8 IWF - Space Research Institute of Austrian Academy of Sciences
9 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Bishop's University

It was recently claimed that the magnetic O-type star HD 54879 exhibits important radial velocity variability indicative of its presence in a spectroscopic binary. More remarkably, it was furthermore reported that the star underwent a short, sudden variation in spectral type and magnetic field. In this Letter we examine new Narval and ESPaDOnS data of this star in addition to the previously-published FORS2 data and conclude that both the reported velocity variations and the sudden spectral and magnetic changes are spurious.

Domaines: Astrophysique [astro-ph]; Astrophysique stellaire et solaire [astro-ph.SR]

G. A. Wade, S. Bagnulo, Z. Keszthelyi, C. P. Folsom, Evelyne Alecian, et al.. No evidence of a sudden change of spectral appearance or magnetic field strength of the O9.7V star HD 54879. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, 2020, pp.L1-L5. ⟨10.1093/mnrasl/slz174⟩. ⟨hal-02368369⟩