No evidence of a sudden change of spectral appearance or magnetic field strength of the O9.7V star HD 54879

G. A. Wade, S. Bagnulo, Z. Keszthelyi, C. P. Folsom, E. Alecian, N. Castro, A. David-Uraz, L. Fossati, V. Petit, M. E. Shultz, J. Sikora

Published 2019-10-31Version 1

It was recently claimed that the magnetic O-type star HD54879 exhibits important radial velocity variability indicative of its presence in a spectroscopic binary. More remarkably, it was furthermore reported that the star underwent a short, sudden variation in spectral type and magnetic field. In this Letter we examine new Narval and ESPaDOnS data of this star in addition to published FORS2 data and conclude that neither the reported velocity variations nor the sudden spectral and magnetic changes are likely real, and that both can be ascribed to errors in data reduction and analysis.