Stable mass transfer from a substellar object onto an M dwarf

IF 15.2 1区物理与天体物理 Q1 ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS

Nature Astronomy Pub Date : 2026-10-05 DOI:10.1038/s41550-026-02992-6

Aaron Householder, Kaitlyn Shin, Kevin B. Burdge, Thomas R. Marsh, Saul A. Rappaport, Kareem El-Badry, Joheen Chakraborty, Emma Chickles, Fei Dai, Matthew J. Graham, S. R. Kulkarni, Pablo Rodríguez-Gil, Andrew Vanderburg, Samuel Whitebook

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Abstract

Substellar objects such as brown dwarfs and planets are generally expected to remain detached from their main-sequence host stars unless orbital decay or stellar expansion brings them into contact, leading to rapid engulfment and destruction. Such a fate is predicted for the Earth and other rocky planets in our Solar System. In certain cases, however, theory also allows for stable long-lived mass transfer from a substellar object onto its main-sequence host, although such accretion has not been observed. Here we report the direct observation of stable mass transfer from a substellar object onto a main-sequence star. In particular, we identify ZTF J0440+2325, an 87-min binary in which a brown dwarf stably transfers mass onto an M dwarf, and present ZTF J1444+4820 (P = 67 min) as a strong candidate low-mass mass-transferring system in a hierarchical triple. These systems demonstrate that the fate of some substellar objects is not rapid engulfment and destruction, but instead gradual consumption for potentially billions of years.

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稳定的质量转移从一个次恒星物体到一个M矮星

一般认为，像棕矮星和行星这样的亚恒星物体会与它们的主序星保持距离，除非轨道衰变或恒星膨胀使它们接触到，导致它们迅速被吞没和毁灭。这样的命运预计将发生在地球和太阳系中的其他岩石行星上。然而，在某些情况下，理论也允许从一个次恒星物体到它的主序宿主的稳定的长期质量转移，尽管这样的吸积还没有被观察到。在这里，我们报告直接观察到稳定的质量转移从一个次恒星的对象到一个主序星。特别是，我们确定了ZTF J0440+2325，这是一个87分钟的双星系统，其中一颗褐矮星稳定地将质量转移到一颗M矮星上，而ZTF J1444+4820 （P = 67分钟）是一个强候选的低质量质量传递系统。这些系统表明，一些次恒星物体的命运不是被迅速吞没和毁灭，而是可能持续数十亿年的逐渐消耗。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Nature Astronomy Physics and Astronomy-Astronomy and Astrophysics

CiteScore

19.50

自引率

2.80%

发文量

252

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