Accretion-induced flickering variability among symbiotic stars from space photometry with NASA TESS

Abstract

Context. Symbiotic binaries exhibit a wide range of photometric variability across different timescales. These changes can be attributed to factors such as orbital motion, intrinsic variability of the individual components, or interactions between the two stars. In the range from minutes to hours, a variability induced by accretion processes that is likely to originate from the accretion disks has been detected and subsequently denoted as flickering. This variability could mimic solar-like oscillations exhibited by luminous red giants. Aims. We aim to investigate whether it is possible to utilize the precise observations of the NASA TESS mission to detect flickering in symbiotic stars, despite the fact that such studies are usually performed at shorter wavelengths than those of TESS observations. Additionally, our goal is to develop a quantitative method for the detection of accretion-induced flickering that does not rely solely on a subjective assessment of the light curves. Methods. We obtained the light curves of known symbiotic stars and a comprehensive control sample of assumed single red giants from the TESS full-frame images. To ensure consistency, all the data were processed using the same methodology, which involves filtering out the background, systematic, and long-term trends. From the processed light curves and their power spectral densities, we measured the amplitudes of the variability and other relevant parameters. Results. We introduce a method that enables a differentiation between flickering sources and stars that do not exhibit this type of variability. We detected flickering-like variability in 20 symbiotic stars utilizing TESS data, of which 13 had not previously been identified as flickering sources. Moreover, the TESS observations facilitate the detection of related variations occurring over timescales of a few days, as well as changes in the flickering behavior across multiple sectors. Conclusions. The flickering is now likely to be detected in a total of 35 known symbiotic stars. While this represents only a small subset of all symbiotic binaries, when focusing solely on accreting-only symbiotic stars where the detection of flickering is presumably more straightforward, the fraction could reach as high as ∼80%. This result suggests that accretion disks may indeed be prevalent in these binaries.