A Multiwavelength View of ρ Oph II: Disentangling the Variability of the Multi-Star Component C
Abstract
We present a multiwavelength analysis of the star ρ Oph C, covering X-ray, optical, near-infrared, and radio observations to test for the presence of interferometrically-detected cool star companions. The X-ray observations from Chandra, XMM-Newton, and NuSTAR show flare-like events lasting minutes or days in time and spectral properties consistent with those of cooler stars instead of the primary magnetic B star. The near-infrared data is also consistent with the proposed trinary system properties due to the presence of CO-band heads. After removing the primary B star's rotation, the optical data from TESS shows a residual signal at the level of 0.8 mmags, matching the variations expected from cool stars in orbit around a bright B star. Finally, multi-epoch radio data reveals that ρ Oph C exhibits significant large scale flux variations that are atypical for a magnetic massive star. Taken as a whole, the multi-epoch and -wavelength data presents a consistent picture of ρ\,Oph\,C as a rare trinary system composed of a hot star and two cool stars.
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BibTeX
@misc{gunderson2026multiwavelength,
title = {{A Multiwavelength View of $ρ$ Oph II: Disentangling the Variability of the Multi-Star Component C}},
author = {Sean J. Gunderson and Walter W. Golay and Jackson Codd and David P. Huenemoerder and Felipe Navarete and Christiana Erba and Alexandrea Moreno and John M. Cannon and Richard Ignace and Pragati Pradhan and the MACRO consortium},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.29809},
eprint = {2609.29809},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.29809},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - A Multiwavelength View of ρ Oph II: Disentangling the Variability of the Multi-Star Component C
AU - Sean J. Gunderson
AU - Walter W. Golay
AU - Jackson Codd
AU - David P. Huenemoerder
AU - Felipe Navarete
AU - Christiana Erba
AU - Alexandrea Moreno
AU - John M. Cannon
AU - Richard Ignace
AU - Pragati Pradhan
AU - the MACRO consortium
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/24
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.29809
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.29809
AB - We present a multiwavelength analysis of the star ρ Oph C, covering X-ray, optical, near-infrared, and radio observations to test for the presence of interferometrically-detected cool star companions. The X-ray observations from Chandra, XMM-Newton, and NuSTAR show flare-like events lasting minutes or days in time and spectral properties consistent with those of cooler stars instead of the primary magnetic B star. The near-infrared data is also consistent with the proposed trinary system properties due to the presence of CO-band heads. After removing the primary B star's rotation, the optical data from TESS shows a residual signal at the level of 0.8 mmags, matching the variations expected from cool stars in orbit around a bright B star. Finally, multi-epoch radio data reveals that ρ Oph C exhibits significant large scale flux variations that are atypical for a magnetic massive star. Taken as a whole, the multi-epoch and -wavelength data presents a consistent picture of ρ\,Oph\,C as a rare trinary system composed of a hot star and two cool stars.
ER -