Published July 22, 2021 | Version v1
Poster Open

A comprehensive look at RR Lyrae stars through high-precision photometry and astrometry

  • 1. Konkoly Observatory, CSFK
  • 2. Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute
  • 3. Vereniging Voor Sterrenkunde (VVS)
  • 4. ELTE Gothard Astrophysical Observatory
  • 5. Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran
  • 6. Space Telescope Science Institute
  • 7. Institut for Astronomy, KU Leuven
  • 8. Caltech/IPAC
  • 9. Department of Physics & Astronomy, Camosun College
  • 10. Graduate Institute of Astronomy, National Central University, Taiwan
  • 11. Department of Physics, Lehigh University
  • 12. Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universitat Heidelberg
  • 13. Gemini Observatory/NSF's NOIRLab
  • 14. Department of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, Masaryk University
  • 15. Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center
  • 16. Université Cheikh Anta Diop Dakar-Fann
  • 17. Magdalene College, University of Cambridge
  • 18. Stellar Astrophysics Centre, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University
  • 19. MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research

Description

The TESS and Gaia missions are both collecting data of exquisite quality for RR Lyrae-type pulsating stars. We combine light curve shape information from TESS with distances and brightnesses from Gaia to build a detailed classification scheme that is able to filter out intrinsically fainter binaries and rotational variables as well as short-period Cepheids that otherwise have light curves very similar to that of RR Lyrae stars, while preserving targets with unusual light curve shapes. We build a clean sample from the RR Lyrae stars in the vicinity of the Sun, out to 5-10 kpc distances.  Based on the TESS light curves we find that a large fraction of RR Lyrae stars exhibit various additional low-amplitude modes. The distribution of extra modes in period is markedly different from that of stars within the bulge and globular clusters, signaling a metallicity dependence in the mode periods and excitation mechanisms. We also detect a possible dependence of extra modes from color and hence effective temperatures  in overtone RRc stars. While these new results have brought us closer to true asteroseismic analysis of RR Lyrae stars, we show through new échelle-type diagrams that mode identification is still hindered by the strong influence of the radial mode(s) dominating the pulsation. 

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Additional details

References

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