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      A deeply eclipsing detached double helium white dwarf binary

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          Abstract

          Using Liverpool Telescope+RISE photometry we identify the 2.78 hour period binary star CSS 41177 as a detached eclipsing double white dwarf binary with a 21,100K primary star and a 10,500K secondary star. This makes CSS 41177 only the second known eclipsing double white dwarf binary after NLTT 11748. The 2 minute long primary eclipse is 40% deep and the secondary eclipse 10% deep. From Gemini+GMOS spectroscopy we measure the radial velocities of both components of the binary from the H{\alpha} absorption line cores. These measurements, combined with the light curve information, yield white dwarf masses of M1 = 0.283\pm0.064Msun and M2 = 0.274\pm0.034Msun, making them both helium core white dwarfs. As an eclipsing, double-lined spectroscopic binary CSS 41177 is ideally suited to measuring precise, model-independent masses and radii. The two white dwarfs will merge in roughly 1.1 Gyr to form a single sdB star.

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          Author and article information

          Journal
          19 May 2011
          Article
          10.1088/2041-8205/735/2/L30
          1105.3946
          81b379d5-7a48-4fa6-8e2c-644a7c6642a2

          http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/

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          Accepted for publication in ApJL
          astro-ph.SR

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