Abstract:
Spectroscopic orbital elements are derived for the close binary system b Persei on the basis of forty spectrograms. The period is redetermined as 1.527360 days, and variations in the orbital elements are confirmed by reanalyzing previous observations. It is shown that variations in some of these elements may result from distortion of the radial-velocity curve by gas streams in the system. It is suggested that b Persei is in an active mass-transfer stage.
