An overwhelming majority of the known members of a very important family of stars, known to astronomers as RR Lyrae variables, have for long appeared to live their lives all alone. These stars, being among the oldest known in the cosmos, contain precious information about the origin and evolution of the stellar systems that harbour them, such as the Milky Way itself. However, the lack of RR Lyrae stars in binary systems has made a direct assessment of some of their key properties difficult. Most often, theory had to be invoked to fill the gap.
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Authors: G. Hajdu, M. Catelan1, J. Jurcsik, I. D´ek´any, A. J. Drake and J.-B. Marquette