HIP 15429: A newborn Be star on an eccentric binary orbit

Abstract

We identified a new post-interaction binary, HIP 15429, consisting of a stripped star and a recently formed, rapidly rotating Be star companion ($v \sin i \approx 270$ km/s) sharing many similarities with recently identified bloated stripped stars. From orbital fitting of multi-epoch radial velocities we find a 221-day period. We also find an eccentricity of $e=0.52$, which is unexpectedly high as tides are expected to have circularised the orbit efficiently during the presumed recent mass transfer. The formation of a circumbinary disk during the mass transfer phase or the presence of an unseen tertiary companion might explain the orbit's high eccentricity. We determined physical parameters for both stars by fitting the spectra of the disentangled binary components and multi-band photometry. The stripped nature of the donor star is affirmed by its high luminosity at a low inferred mass ($\lesssim 1 \mathrm{M}_\odot$) and imprints of CNO-processed material in the surface abundances. The donor's relatively large radius and cool temperature ($T_{\mathrm{eff}} = 13.5 \pm 0.5$ kK) suggest that it has only recently ceased mass transfer. Evolutionary models assuming a 5-6 $\mathrm{M}_\odot$ progenitor can reproduce these parameters and imply that the binary is currently evolving towards a stage where the donor becomes a subdwarf orbiting a Be star. The remarkably high eccentricity of HIP 15429 challenges standard tidal evolution models, suggesting either inefficient tidal dissipation or external influences, such as a tertiary companion or circumbinary disk. This underscores the need to identify and characterise more post-mass transfer binaries to benchmark and refine theoretical models of binary evolution.