Zoltan Kollath

On the Blazhko effect in RR lyrae stars

The Blazhko effect is a long-term, generally irregular modulation of the light curves that occurs in a sizeable number of RR Lyrae stars. The physical origin of the effect has been a puzzle ever since its discovery over a hundred years ago. We build here upon the recent observational and theoretical work of Szabo et al. on RRab stars who found with hydrodynamical simulations that the fundamental pulsation mode can get destabilized by a 9:2 resonant interaction with the 9th overtone. Alternating pulsation cycles arise, although these remain periodic, i.e., not modulated as in the observations. Here we use the amplitude equation formalism to study this nonlinear, resonant interaction between the two modes. We show that not only does the fundamental pulsation mode break up into a period-two cycle through the nonlinear, resonant interaction with the overtone, but that the amplitudes are modulated, and that in a broad range of parameters the modulations are irregular as in the observations. This irregular behavior is in fact chaotic and arises from a strange attractor in the dynamics.

LONG-TIMESCALE BEHAVIOR OF THE BLAZHKO EFFECT FROM RECTIFIED KEPLER DATA

In order to benefit from the four year unprecedented precision of the Kepler data, we extracted light curves from the pixel photometric data of the Kepler space telescope for 15 Blazhko RR Lyrae stars. To collect all the flux from a given target as accurately as possible, we defined tailor-made apertures for each star and quarter. In some cases, the aperture finding process yielded sub-optimal results, because some flux have been lost even if the aperture contains all available pixels around the star. This fact stresses the importance of those methods that rely on the whole light curve instead of focusing on the extrema (O – C diagrams and other amplitude independent methods). We carried out detailed Fourier analysis of the light curves and the amplitude independent O – C diagram. We found 12 (80%) multiperiodically modulated stars in our sample. This ratio is much higher than previously found. Resonant coupling between radial modes, a recent theory for explaining the Blazhko effect, allows single, multiperiodic, or even chaotic modulations. Among the stars with two modulations, we found three stars (V355 Lyr, V366 Lyr, and V450 Lyr) where one of the periods dominates in amplitude modulation, but the other period has a larger frequency modulation amplitude. The ratio between the primary and secondary modulation periods is almost always very close to the ratios of small integer numbers. It may indicate the effect of undiscovered resonances. Furthermore, we detected the excitation of the second radial overtone mode f 2 for three stars where this feature was formerly unknown. Our data set comprises the longest continuous, most precise observations of Blazhko RR Lyrae stars ever published. These data are made publicly available and will be unrivaled for years to come.

Hydrodynamical Survey of First-Overtone Cepheids

A hydrodynamical survey of the pulsational properties of first-overtone Galactic Cepheids is presented. The goal of this study is to reproduce their observed light and radial velocity curves. The comparison between the models and the observations is made in a quantitative manner on the level of the Fourier coefficients. Purely radiative models fail to reproduce the observed features, but convective models give good agreement. It is found that the sharp features in the Fourier coefficients are indeed caused by the P1/P4 = 2 resonance, despite the very large damping of the fourth overtone. For the adopted mass-luminosity relation, the resonance center lies near a period of 42 ± 03 as indicated by the observed radial velocity data rather than near 32 as the light curves suggest.

Nonlinear Beat Cepheid Models

The numerical hydrodynamic modeling of beat Cepheid behavior has been a long-standing quest in which purely radiative models have failed miserably. We find that beat pulsations occur naturally when turbulent convection is accounted for in our hydrodynamics codes. The development of a relaxation code and of a Floquet stability analysis greatly facilitates the search for and analysis of beat Cepheid models. The conditions for the occurrence of beat behavior can be understood easily and at a fundamental level with the help of amplitude equations. Here a discriminant D arises whose sign decides whether single-mode or double-mode pulsations can occur in a model, and this D depends only on the values of the nonlinear coupling coefficients between the fundamental and the first overtone modes. For radiative models D is always found to be negative, but with sufficiently strong turbulent convection its sign reverses.

Mode-switching timescales in the classical variable stars

Near the edges of the instability strip,the rate of stellar evolution is larger than the growth rate of the pulsation amplitude, and the same holds whenever the star is engaged in pulsational mode switching. Stellar evolution therefore controls the onset of pulsation at the edges of the instability strip and of mode switching inside it. Two types of switchings (bifurcations) occur. In a soft bifurcation, the switching timescale is the inverse harmonic mean of the pulsational modal growth rate and of the stellar evolution rate. In a hard bifurcation, the switching times can be substantially longer than the thermal timescale, which is typically of the order of 100 periods for Cepheids and RR Lyrae stars. We discuss some of the observational consequences, in particular the paucity of low-amplitude pulsators at the edges of the instability strip.

RR Lyrae: Theory versus Observation

The luminosities, effective temperatures, and metallicities that are derived empirically by Kovacs & Jurcsik from the light curves of a large number of globular cluster and field RRab and RRc stars are compared to theoretical RR Lyrae models. The strong luminosity dependence of the empirical blue and red edges (log L vs. log Teff diagram) is in disagreement with that of both radiative and convective models. A reexamination of the theoretical uncertainties in the modeling leads us to conclude that the disagreement appears irreconcilable.

Double-Mode Stellar Pulsations

The status of the hydrodynamical modelling of nonlinear multi-mode stellar pulsations is discussed. The hydrodynamical modelling of steady double-mode (DM) pulsations has been a long-standing quest that is finally being concluded. Recent progress has been made thanks to the introduction of turbulent convection in the numerical hydrodynamical codes which provide detailed results for individual models. An overview of the modal selection problem in the HR diagram can be obtained in the form of bifurcation diagrams with the help of simple nonresonant amplitude equations that capture the DM phenomenon.

Turbulent Convection in the Classical Variable Stars

Abstract: We give a status report of convective Cepheid and RR Lyrae model pulsations. Some striking successes can be reported, despite the use of a rather simple treatment of turbulent convection with a 1D time‐dependent diffusion equation for the turbulent energy. It is now possible to obtain stable double‐mode (beat) pulsations in both Cepheid and RR Lyrae models with astrophysical parameters, i.e. periods and amplitude ratios, that are in agreement with observations. The turbulent convective models, however, have difficulties giving global agreement with the observations. In particular, the Magellanic Cloud Cepheids which have been observed in connection with the microlensing projects have imposed novel observational constraints because of the low metallicity of the MCs.

High-precision 2MASS JHKs light curves and other data for RR LYRAE star SDSS J015450 + 001501: Strong constraints for nonlinear pulsation models

We present and discuss an extensive data set for the non-Blazhko ab-type RR Lyrae star SDSS J015450+001501, including optical Sloan Digital Sky Survey ugriz light curves and spectroscopic data, LINEAR and Catalina Sky Survey unfiltered optical light curves, and infrared Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) JHK_s and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer W1 and W2 light curves. Most notable is that light curves obtained by 2MASS include close to 9000 photometric measures collected over 3.3 yr and provide an exceedingly precise view of near-infrared variability. These data demonstrate that static atmosphere models are insufficient to explain multiband photometric light-curve behavior and present strong constraints for nonlinear pulsation models for RR Lyrae stars. It is a challenge to modelers to produce theoretical light curves that can explain data presented here, which we make publicly available.

Tracking the dynamics of skyglow with differential photometry using a digital camera with fisheye lens

Abstract Artificial skyglow is dynamic due to changing atmospheric conditions and the switching on and off of artificial lights throughout the night. Street lights as well as the ornamental illumination of historical sites and buildings are sometimes switched off at a certain time to save energy. Ornamental lights in particular are often directed upwards, and can therefore have a major contribution towards brightening of the night sky. Here we use differential photometry to investigate the change in night sky brightness and illuminance during an automated regular switch-off of ornamental light in the town of Balaguer and an organized switch-off of all public lights in the village of Ager, both near Montsec Astronomical Park in Spain. The sites were observed during two nights with clear and cloudy conditions using a DSLR camera and a fisheye lens. A time series of images makes it possible to track changes in lighting conditions and sky brightness simultaneously. During the clear night, the ornamental lights in Balaguer contribute over 20% of the skyglow at zenith at the observational site. Furthermore, we are able to track very small changes in the ground illuminance on a cloudy night near Ager.