Low-dimensional chaos in RR Lyrae models

The recent precise photometric observations and successes of the modelling efforts transformed our picture of the pulsation of RR Lyrae stars. The discovery of additional frequencies and the period doubling phenomenon revealed that a significant interaction may occur between pulsational modes. The signs of irregularities were detected both in observed light curves and hydrodynamic calculations. In this paper we present the analysis of four peculiar hydrodynamic model solutions. All four solutions were found to be chaotic. The fractal (Lyapunov) dimensions of their attractors were calculated to be ~2.2. We also investigated possible resonances between the fundamental mode and the first overtone in the dynamical neighbourhood of these models. The most important is the 6:8 resonance that was also detected in the Kepler observations of RR Lyrae itself. These results reveal that the investigation of chaotic models is important in discovering and understanding resonances in RR Lyrae stars.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

On the interchange of alternating-amplitude pulsation cycles

We characterized the time intervals between the interchanges of the alternating high- and low-amplitude extrema of three RV Tauri and three RR Lyrae stars.Comment: 2 pages, Proceedings of the 301st IAU Symposium, Precision Asteroseismology, August 201

Multimode pulsation of the ZZ Ceti star GD 154

We present the results of a comparative period search on different time-scales and modelling of the ZZ Ceti (DAV) star GD 154. We determined six frequencies as normal modes and four rotational doublets around the ones having the largest amplitude. Two normal modes at 807.62 and 861.56 microHz have never been reported before. A rigorous test revealed remarkable intrinsic amplitude variability of frequencies at 839.14 and 861.56 microHz over a 50 d time-scale. In addition, the multimode pulsation changed to monoperiodic pulsation with an 843.15 microHz dominant frequency at the end of the observing run. The 2.76 microHz average rotational split detected led to a determination of a 2.1 d rotational period for GD 154. We searched for model solutions with effective temperatures and log g close to the spectroscopically determined ones. The best-fitting models resulting from the grid search have M_H between 6.3 x 10^-5 and 6.3 x 10^-7 M*, which means thicker hydrogen layer than the previous studies suggested. Our investigations show that mode trapping does not necessarily operate in all of the observed modes and the best candidate for a trapped mode is at 2484 microHz.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Nonlinear dynamical analysis of the Blazhko effect with the Kepler space telescope: the case of V783 Cyg

We present a detailed nonlinear dynamical investigation of the Blazhko modulation of the Kepler RR Lyrae star V783 Cyg (KIC 5559631). We used different techniques to produce modulation curves, including the determination of amplitude maxima, the O-C diagram and the analytical function method. We were able to fit the modulation curves with chaotic signals with the global flow reconstruction method. However, when we investigated the effects of instrumental and data processing artefacts, we found that the chaotic nature of the modulation can not be proved because of the technical problems of data stitching, detrending and sparse sampling. Moreover, we found that a considerable part of the detected cycle-to-cycle variation of the modulation may originate from these effects. According to our results, even the four-year-long, unprecedented Kepler space photometry of V783 Cyg is too short for a reliable nonlinear dynamical analysis aiming at the detection of chaos from the Blazhko modulation. We estimate that two other stars could be suitable for similar analysis in the Kepler sample and in the future TESS and PLATO may provide additional candidates.Comment: 9 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Constraining RRc candidates using SDSS colours

The light variations of first-overtone RR Lyrae stars and contact eclipsing binaries can be difficult to distinguish. The Catalina Periodic Variable Star catalog contains several misclassified objects, despite the classification efforts by Drake et al. (2014). They used metallicity and surface gravity derived from spectroscopic data (from the SDSS database) to rule out binaries. Our aim is to further constrain the catalog using SDSS colours to estimate physical parameters for stars that did not have spectroscopic data.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, proceedings of the RRL2015 - High-Precision Studies of RR Lyrae Stars conference, to appear in the Communications from the Konkoly Observator

Target selection of classical pulsating variables for space-based photometry

In a few years the Kepler and TESS missions will provide ultra-precise photometry for thousands of RR Lyrae and hundreds of Cepheid stars. In the extended Kepler mission all targets are proposed in the Guest Observer (GO) Program, while the TESS space telescope will work with full frame images and a ~15-16th mag brightness limit with the possibility of short cadence measurements for a limited number of pre-selected objects. This paper highlights some details of the enormous and important work of the target selection process made by the members of Working Group 7 (WG#7) of the Kepler and TESS Asteroseismic Science Consortium.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, proceedings of the RRL2015 - High-Precision Studies of RR Lyrae Stars conference, to appear in the Communications from the Konkoly Observator

A modulated RRd star observed by K2

We report the analysis of the double-mode RR Lyrae star EPIC 205209951, the first modulated RRd star observed from space. The amplitude and phase modulation are present in both modes.Comment: 2 pages, 3 figures, proceedings of the Joint TASC2-KASC9-SPACEINN-HELAS8 Conference "Seismology of the Sun and the Distant Stars 2016", to be published in EPJ Wo

G 207-9 and LP 133-144: light curve analysis and asteroseismology of two ZZ Ceti stars

G 207-9 and LP 133-144 are two rarely observed ZZ Ceti stars located in the middle and close to the blue edge of the ZZ Ceti instability domain, respectively. We aimed to observe them at least during one observing season at Konkoly Observatory with the purpose of extending the list of known pulsation modes for asteroseismic investigations and detect any significant changes in their pulsational behaviour. We determined five and three new normal modes of G 207-9 and LP 133-144, respectively. In LP 133-144, our frequency analysis also revealed that at least at three modes there are actually triplets with frequency separations of ~4 microHz. The rotational period of LP 133-144 based on the triplets is ~42 h. The preliminary asteroseismic fits of G 207-9 predict Teff=12 000 or 12 400 K and M*=0.855-0.870 MSun values for the effective temperature and mass of the star, depending on the assumptions on the spherical degree (l) values of the modes. These results are in agreement with the spectroscopic determinations. In the case of LP 133-144, the best-fitting models prefer Teff=11 800 K in effective temperature and M*>=0.71 MSun stellar masses, which are more than 0.1 MSun larger than the spectroscopic value.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2016 June 30