The Banana Project. III. Spin-orbit Alignment in the Long-period Eclipsing Binary NY Cephei

Binaries are not always neatly aligned. Previous observations of the DI Her system showed that the spin axes of both stars are highly inclined with respect to one another and the orbital axis. Here we report on a measurement of the spin-axis orientation of the primary star of the NY Cep system, which is similar to DI Her in many respects: it features two young early-type stars (~6 Myr, B0.5V+B2V), in an eccentric and relatively long-period orbit (e=0.48, P=15.d3). The sky projections of the rotation vector and the spin vector are well-aligned (beta_p = 2 +- 4 degrees), in strong contrast to DI Her. Although no convincing explanation has yet been given for the misalignment of DI Her, our results show that the phenomenon is not universal, and that a successful theory will need to account for the different outcome in the case of NY Cep.