Spectral modelling of massive binary systems: The example of LZ Cep

Despite their importance for many astrophysical processes, massive stars are still not fully understood. Massive binaries offer an attractive way to improve our knowledge of the fundamental properties of these objects. However, some secondary effects are known to generate variations in the spectra of massive binaries, rendering their analyses more difficult. We present here a new approach to the computation of synthetic spectra of massive binaries at different phases of their orbital cycle. Our model starts with the Roche potential modified by radiation pressure and accounts for the influence of the companion star on the shape and physical properties of the stellar surface. We further account for gravity darkening and reflection effects to compute the surface temperature. Once the local gravity and temperature are determined, we interpolate in a grid of NLTE plan-parallel atmosphere model spectra to obtain the local contribution to the spectrum at each surface points. Then we sum all the contributions, accounting for the Doppler shift, and limb-darkening to obtain the total spectrum. The computation is repeated for different orbital phases and can be compared to the observations to determine the best parameters. We illustrate our method through the example of the LZ Cep system (O9III + ON9.7V).