158 research outputs found
On the systematics of asteroseismological mass determinations of PG1159 stars
We analyze systematics in the asteroseismological mass determination methods
in pulsating PG 1159 stars. We compare the seismic masses resulting from the
comparison of the observed mean period spacings with the usually adopted
asymptotic period spacings, and the average of the computed period spacings.
Computations are based on full PG1159 evolutionary models with stellar masses
ranging from 0.530 to 0.741 Mo that take into account the complete evolution of
progenitor stars. We conclude that asteroseismology is a precise and powerful
technique that determines the masses to a high internal accuracy, but it
depends on the adopted mass determination method. In particular, we find that
in the case of pulsating PG 1159 stars characterized by short pulsation
periods, like PG 2131+066 and PG 0122+200, the employment of the asymptotic
period spacings overestimates the stellar mass by about 0.06 Mo as compared
with inferences from the average of the period spacings. In this case, the
discrepancy between asteroseismological and spectroscopical masses is markedly
reduced when use is made of the mean period spacing instead of the asymptotic
period spacing.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. To be published in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
The seismic properties of low-mass He-core white dwarf stars
We present here a detailed pulsational study applied to low-mass He-core
white dwarfs, based on full evolutionary models representative of these
objects. The background stellar models on which our pulsational analysis was
carried out were derived by taking into account the complete evolutionary
history of the progenitor stars, with special emphasis on the diffusion
processes acting during the white dwarf cooling phase. We computed nonradial
-modes to assess the dependence of the pulsational properties of these
objects with stellar parameters such as the stellar mass and the effective
temperature, and also with element diffusion processes. We also performed a g-
and p-mode pulsational stability analysis on our models and found well-defined
blue edges of the instability domain, where these stars should start to exhibit
pulsations. We found substantial differences in the seismic properties of white
dwarfs with and the extremely low-mass (ELM) white
dwarfs (). Specifically, -mode pulsation modes
in ELM white dwarfs mainly probe the core regions and are not dramatically
affected by mode-trapping effects by the He/H interface, whereas the opposite
is true for more massive He-core white dwarfs. We found that element diffusion
processes substantially affects the shape of the He/H chemical transition
region, leading to non-negligible changes in the period spectrum of low-mass
white dwarfs. Our stability analysis successfully predicts the pulsations of
the only known variable low-mass white dwarf (SDSS J184037.78+642312.3), and
also predicts both - and -mode pulsational instabilities in a significant
number of known low-mass and ELM white dwarfs.Comment: 14 pages, 15 figures, 2 tables. To be published in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
Asteroseismology of the Kepler V777 Her variable white dwarf with fully evolutionary models
DBV stars are pulsating white dwarfs with atmospheres rich in He.
Asteroseismology of DBV stars can provide valuable clues about the origin,
structure and evolution of hydrogen-deficient white dwarfs, and may allow to
study neutrino and axion physics. Recently, a new DBV star, KIC 8626021, has
been discovered in the field of the \emph{Kepler} spacecraft. It is expected
that further monitoring of this star in the next years will enable astronomers
to determine its detailed asteroseismic profile. We perform an
asteroseismological analysis of KIC 8626021 on the basis of fully evolutionary
DB white-dwarf models. We employ a complete set of evolutionary DB white-dwarf
structures covering a wide range of effective temperatures and stellar masses.
They have been obtained on the basis of a complete treatment of the
evolutionary history of progenitors stars. We compute g-mode adiabatic
pulsation periods for this set of models and compare them with the pulsation
properties exhibited by KIC 8626021. On the basis of the mean period spacing of
the star, we found that the stellar mass should be substantially larger than
spectroscopy indicates. From period-to-period fits we found an
asteroseismological model characterized by an effective temperature much higher
than the spectroscopic estimate. In agreement with a recent asteroseismological
analysis of this star by other authors, we conclude that KIC 8626021 is located
near the blue edge of the DBV instability strip, contrarily to spectroscopic
predictions. We also conclude that the mass of KIC 8626021 should be
substantially larger than thought.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables. To be published in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
Asteroseismological study of massive ZZ Ceti stars with fully evolutionary models
We present the first asteroseismological study for 42 massive ZZ Ceti stars
based on a large set of fully evolutionary carbonoxygen core DA white dwarf
models characterized by a detailed and consistent chemical inner profile for
the core and the envelope. Our sample comprise all the ZZ Ceti stars with
spectroscopic stellar masses between 0.72 and known to date.
The asteroseismological analysis of a set of 42 stars gives the possibility to
study the ensemble properties of the massive pulsating white dwarf stars with
carbonoxygen cores, in particular the thickness of the hydrogen envelope and
the stellar mass. A significant fraction of stars in our sample have stellar
mass high enough as to crystallize at the effective temperatures of the ZZ Ceti
instability strip, which enables us to study the effects of crystallization on
the pulsation properties of these stars. Our results show that the phase
diagram presented in Horowitz et al. (2010) seems to be a good representation
of the crystallization process inside white dwarf stars, in agreement with the
results from white dwarf luminosity function in globular clusters.Comment: 58 pages, 11 figures, accepted in Ap
Revealing the pulsational properties of the V777 Her star KUV 05134+2605 by its long-term monitoring
Context: KUV 05134+2605 is one of the 21 pulsating DB white dwarfs (V777 Her
or DBV variables) known so far. The detailed investigation of the short-period
and low-amplitude pulsations of these relatively faint targets requires
considerable observational efforts from the ground, long-term single-site or
multisite observations. The observed amplitudes of excited modes undergo
short-term variations in many cases, which makes the determination of pulsation
modes difficult.
Methods: We re-analysed the data already published, and collected new
measurements. We compared the frequency content of the different datasets from
the different epochs and performed various tests to check the reliability of
the frequency determinations. The mean period spacings were investigated with
linear fits to the observed periods, Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Inverse Variance
significance tests, and Fourier analysis of different period sets, including a
Monte Carlo test simulating the effect of alias ambiguities. We employed fully
evolutionary DB white dwarf models for the asteroseismic investigations.
Results: We identified 22 frequencies between 1280 and 2530 microHz. These
form 12 groups, which suggests at least 12 possible frequencies for the
asteroseismic investigations. Thanks to the extended observations, KUV
05134+2605 joined the group of rich white dwarf pulsators. We identified one
triplet and at least one doublet with a ~9 microHz frequency separation, from
which we derived a stellar rotation period of 0.6 d. We determined the mean
period spacings of ~31 and ~18 s for the modes we propose as dipole and
quadrupole, respectively. We found an excellent agreement between the stellar
mass derived from the l=1 period spacing and the period-to-period fits, all
providing M_* = 0.84-0.85 M_Sun solutions. Our study suggests that KUV
05134+2605 is the most massive amongst the known V777 Her stars.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
Probing the internal rotation of pre-white dwarf stars with asteroseismology: the case of PG 122+200
We put asteroseismological constraints on the internal rotation profile of
the GW Vir (PG1159-type) star PG 0122+200. To this end we employ a
state-of-the-art asteroseismological model for this star and we assess the
expected frequency splittings induced by rotation adopting a forward approach
in which we compare the theoretical frequency separations with the observed
ones assuming different types of plausible internal rotation profiles. We also
employ two asteroseismological inversion methods for the inversion of the
rotation profile of PG 0122+200. We find evidence for differential rotation in
this star. We demonstrate that the frequency splittings of the rotational
multiplets exhibited by PG 0122+200 are compatible with a rotation profile in
which the central regions are spinning about 2.4 times faster than the stellar
surface.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. To be published in MNRA
Asteroseismological constraints on the pulsating planetary nebula nucleus (PG1159-type) RX J2117.1+3412
We present asteroseismological inferences on RX J2117.1+3412, the hottest
known pulsating PG1159 star. Our results are based on full PG1159 evolutionary
models recently presented by Miller Bertolami & Althaus (2006). We performed
extensive computations of adiabatic g-mode pulsation periods on PG1159
evolutionary models with stellar masses ranging from 0.530 to 0.741 Mo. PG1159
stellar models are extracted from the complete evolution of progenitor stars
started from the ZAMS, through the thermally pulsing AGB and born-again phases
to the domain of the PG 1159 stars. We constrained the stellar mass of RX
J2117.1+3412 by comparing the observed period spacing with the asymptotic
period spacing and with the average of the computed period spacings. We also
employed the individual observed periods to find a representative seismological
model. We derive a stellar mass of 0.56-0.57 Mo from the period spacing data
alone. In addition, we found a best-fit model representative for RX
J2117.1+3412 with an effective temperature of 163,400 K, a stellar mass of
0.565 Mo, and a surface gravity log g= 6.61. The derived stellar luminosity and
radius are log(L/Lo)= 3.36 and log(R/Ro)= -1.23, respectively, and the He-rich
envelope thickness is Menv= 0.02 Mo. We derive a seismic distance of 452 pc and
a linear size of the planetary nebula of 1.72 pc. These inferences seem to
solve the discrepancy between the RX J2117.1+3412 evolutionary timescale and
the size of the nebula. All of the seismological tools we use concur to the
conclusion that RX J2117.1+3412 must have a stellar mass of 0.565 Mo much in
agreement with recent asteroseismology studies and in clear conflict with the
predictions of spectroscopy plus evolutionary tracks.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in Astronomy
and Astrophysics. Erratum available as a separate fil
DQ white-dwarf stars with low C abundance: Possible progenitors
The present paper focuses on the evolution of hydrogen-deficient white dwarfs
with the aim of exploring the consequences of different initial envelope
structures on the carbon abundances expected in helium-rich,
carbon-contaminated DQ white dwarfs. In particular, the evolutionary link
between the DQs with low detected carbon abundances and the PG1159, extreme
horizontal branch, and helium-rich R Coronae Borealis (RCrB) stars is explored.
We present full evolutionary calculations that take a self-consistent treatment
of element diffusion into account as well as expectations for the outer layer
chemical stratification of progenitor stars upon entering the white dwarf
regime. We find that PG1159 stars cannot be related to any DQ white dwarfs with
low C abundances. Instead, we suggest that the latter could constitute the
progeny of the giant, helium-rich RCrB stars.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
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