A New Class of Roche Lobe-filling Hot Subdwarf Binaries

We present the discovery of the second binary with a Roche lobe-filling hot subdwarf transferring mass to a white dwarf (WD) companion. This 56 minute binary was discovered using data from the Zwicky Transient Facility. Spectroscopic observations reveal an He-sdOB star with an effective temperature ofT(eff) = 33,700 1000 K and a surface gravity of log(g) = 5.54 0.11. The GTC+HiPERCAM light curve is dominated by the ellipsoidal deformation of the He-sdOB star and shows an eclipse of the He-sdOB by an accretion disk as well as a weak eclipse of the WD. We infer a He-sdOB mass ofM(sdOB) = 0.41 0.04Mand a WD mass ofM(WD) = 0.68 0.05M. The weak eclipses imply a WD blackbody temperature of 63,000 10,000 K and a radiusR(WD) = 0.0148 0.0020Ras expected for a WD of such high temperature. The He-sdOB star is likely undergoing hydrogen shell burning and will continue transferring mass for 1 Myr at a rate of 10(-9)Myr(-1), which is consistent with the high WD temperature. The hot subdwarf will then turn into a WD and the system will merge in 30 Myr. We suggest that Galactic reddening could bias discoveries toward preferentially finding Roche lobe-filling systems during the short-lived shell-burning phase. Studies using reddening-corrected samples should reveal a large population of helium core-burning hot subdwarfs withT(eff) 25,000 K in binaries of 60-90 minutes with WDs. Though not yet in contact, these binaries would eventually come into contact through gravitational-wave emission and explode as a subluminous thermonuclear supernova or evolve into a massive single WD.