A Close-in Substellar Object Orbiting the sdOB-type Eclipsing-Binary System NSVS14256825

Abstract

NSVS 14256825 is the second sdOB + dM eclipsing binary systems with anorbital period of 2.65 hours. The special binary was reported to contain circumbinary planets or brown dwarfs by using the timing method. However, different results were derived by different authors because of the insufficient coverage of eclipse timings. Since 2008, we have monitored this binary for about 10 years by using several telescopes and 84 new times of light minimum in high precision were obtained. It is found that the O-C curve is increasing recently and it shows a cyclic variation with a period of 8.83 years and amplitude of 46.31 seconds. The cyclic change cannot be explained by magnetic activity cycles of the red-dwarf component because the required energy is much larger than that radiated by this component in one whole period. This cyclic change detected in NSVS1425 could be explained by the light-travel time effect via the presence of a third body. The lowest mass of the third body is determined as 14.15 Mjup that is in the transition between planets and brown dwarfs. The substellar object is orbiting around this evolved binary at an orbital separation around 3 AU with an eccentricity of 0.12. These results indicate that NSVS 14256825 is the first sdOB-type eclipsing binary consisting of a hierarchical substellar object. The detection of a close-in substellar companion to NSVS 14256825 will provide some insights on the formation and evolution of sdOB-type binaries and their companions.