Matching seismic masses for RR Lyrae-type and oscillating red horizontal-branch stars in M4

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Molnár, László, Netzel, Henryka, Howell, Madeline, Kalup, Csilla, Joyce, Meridith
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866915554231582720
author Molnár, László
Netzel, Henryka
Howell, Madeline
Kalup, Csilla
Joyce, Meridith
author_facet Molnár, László
Netzel, Henryka
Howell, Madeline
Kalup, Csilla
Joyce, Meridith
contents Globular clusters offer a powerful way to test the properties of stellar populations and the late stages of low-mass stellar evolution. In this paper we study oscillating giant stars and overtone RR Lyrae-type pulsators in the nearest globular cluster, M4, with the help of high-precision, continuous light curves collected by the Kepler space telescope in the K2 mission. We determine the frequency composition of five RRc stars and model their physical parameters from linear pulsation models. We are able, for the first time, to compare seismic masses of RR Lyrae stars directly to the masses of the very similar red horizontal branch stars in the same stellar population, independently determined from asteroseismic scaling relations. We find average seismic masses of $0.648\pm0.028\,M_\odot$ for RR Lyrae stars and $0.657\pm0.034\,M_\odot$ for red horizontal-branch stars. While the accuracy of our RR Lyrae masses still relies on the accuracy of evolutionary mass differences of neighboring horizontal branch subgroups, this result strongly indicates that RRc stars may indeed exhibit high-degree, $\ell = 8$ and 9 non-radial modes, and modeling these modes can provide realistic mass estimates. We compare the seismic masses of our red horizontal branch and RR Lyrae stars to evolutionary models and to theoretical mass relations and highlight the limitations of these relations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_05391
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Matching seismic masses for RR Lyrae-type and oscillating red horizontal-branch stars in M4
Molnár, László
Netzel, Henryka
Howell, Madeline
Kalup, Csilla
Joyce, Meridith
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Globular clusters offer a powerful way to test the properties of stellar populations and the late stages of low-mass stellar evolution. In this paper we study oscillating giant stars and overtone RR Lyrae-type pulsators in the nearest globular cluster, M4, with the help of high-precision, continuous light curves collected by the Kepler space telescope in the K2 mission. We determine the frequency composition of five RRc stars and model their physical parameters from linear pulsation models. We are able, for the first time, to compare seismic masses of RR Lyrae stars directly to the masses of the very similar red horizontal branch stars in the same stellar population, independently determined from asteroseismic scaling relations. We find average seismic masses of $0.648\pm0.028\,M_\odot$ for RR Lyrae stars and $0.657\pm0.034\,M_\odot$ for red horizontal-branch stars. While the accuracy of our RR Lyrae masses still relies on the accuracy of evolutionary mass differences of neighboring horizontal branch subgroups, this result strongly indicates that RRc stars may indeed exhibit high-degree, $\ell = 8$ and 9 non-radial modes, and modeling these modes can provide realistic mass estimates. We compare the seismic masses of our red horizontal branch and RR Lyrae stars to evolutionary models and to theoretical mass relations and highlight the limitations of these relations.
title Matching seismic masses for RR Lyrae-type and oscillating red horizontal-branch stars in M4
topic Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.05391