Observations and Orbital Analysis of the High-Amplitude Delta Scuti Star SZ Lyncis: The Unusual Orbital Precession

We determined forty-two new times of light maximum from our photometry observations and WASP project, and collected all times of light maximum observed between 1961 and 2013 in order to calculate the orbital elements of the SZ Lyncis system and the secular change of the pulsation period with the classical O - C method. We confirmed the decrease of the longitude of the periastron passage with a rate of (-1 degrees.15 +/- 0 degrees.25) yr(-1), and discussed the causative mechanism. The results show that the precession of the star's orbit might be due to a close binary system, which means that the companion of SZ Lyncis is actually a binary system. We used the Hipparcos Intermediate Astrometric Data to obtain the complete orbital elements of the SZ Lyncis system, and found that the inclination, i, and parallax, pi(t), are 39 degrees.5 +/- 17 degrees.7 and 2.61 +/- 0.98 mas (corresponds to 380 +/- 140 pc), respectively. We reanalyzed the mean radial velocities of SZ Lyncis given by Bardin and Imbert (1984), and noticed a weak variation existing in the residuals from a single-Keplerian fit. We suggest that more detailed high-precision spectroscopic observations are definitely needed in the future to check this short periodic change.