Unravelling Mass Transfer in Algols from Surface Abundances. I. Z Vulpeculae
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, cilt.1, ss.1-34, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 1
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1093/mnras/stag1476
- Dergi Adı: MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Applied Science & Technology Source, Academic Search Ultimate (EBSCO), Scopus, Technology Collection (ProQuest), Aerospace Database, Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Compendex, INSPEC, zbMATH, Directory of Open Access Journals
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.1-34
- Akdeniz Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
The photospheric abundance pattern of the components is a sensitive probe of mass and angular momentum transfer in Algols. With the aim to trace the evolutionary history and disclosed efficiency of mass transfer in Algols we collected new high-resolution spectra for about a dozen Algols with the {\sc hermes} spectrograph at the Mercator Telescope on La Palma, Canary Islands. In the present paper, which is the first in the series, we present the results of a comprehensive analysis of Z Vul, a hot Algol-type system. We derived the absolute stellar quantities and elemental abundances for the components. The carbon-to-nitrogen (C/N) ratio is the most sensitive tracer of thermonuclear processing and mass transfer. It is found to be within expected value for gainer but donor lacks the severe C/N inversion traditionally expected for a deeply stripped star. An extensive grid of over three million evolutionary models was calculated with the Cambridge \texttt{STARS} code which allows determination of the best-fitting and all surviving models. Constraints from the He and CNO abundances indicate that Z Vul underwent an episode of nearly conservative mass transfer during the Main Sequence life-time of the originally more massive component (Case A). Our detailed chemical tagging confirms that the surface abundances of the mass-losing component represent the delicately stripped outer layers still not reaching the CNO-rich core. This underscores the need of coupling high-resolution spectroscopic abundances with interior stellar profiles to accurately reconstruct the evolutionary history of interacting binaries.