A&A Supplement series, Vol. 128, February II 1998, 19-28
Received May 20, accepted June 18, 1997
J. Kaluzny
- M. Kubiak -
M. Szymanski - A. Udalski -
W. Krzeminski
- M. Mateo
-
K.Z. Stanek
Send offprint request: J. Kaluzny
Warsaw University Observatory, Al. Ujazdowskie 4,
00-478 Warsaw, Poland
e-mail: (jka,mk,msz,udalski)@sirius.astrouw.edu.pl
Carnegie Observatories, Las Campanas Observatory, Casilla 601,
La Serena, Chile
e-mail: wojtek@roses.ctio.noao.edu
Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, 821 Dennison
Bldg., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1090, U.S.A.
e-mail: mateo@astro.lsa.umich.edu
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St., Cambridge,
MA 02138, U.S.A.
e-mail: kstanek@cfa.harvard.edu
Five fields located close to the center of the globular cluster
NGC 104=47 Tuc were surveyed in a search for variable stars.
We present V-band light curves for 42 variables. This sample
includes 13 RR Lyr stars - 12 of them belong to the Small Magellanic
Cloud (SMC) and 1
is a background object from the galactic halo.
Twelve eclipsing binaries were identified - 9 contact systems and 3
detached/semi-detached systems. Seven eclipsing binaries are located
in the blue straggler region on the cluster color-magnitude diagram (CMD)
and four binaries
can be considered main-sequence systems. One binary is probably a
member of the SMC.
Eight contact binaries are likely members of the cluster
and one is most probably a foreground star. We show that for the
surveyed region of 47 Tuc, the relative frequency of contact binaries
is very low as compared with other recently surveyed globular clusters.
The sample of identified variables also includes 15 red variables
with periods ranging from about 2 days to several weeks.
A large fraction of these 15 variables probably belong to the SMC
but a few stars are likely to be red giants in 47 Tuc.
VI photometry for about 50 000 stars from the cluster fields
was obtained as a by product of our survey.
keywords: globular clusters: individual: NGC 104 -- star: variables: other -- blue stragglers -- binaries: eclipsing -- HR diagram -- Magellanic clouds