An RR Lyrae family portrait: 33 stars observed in Pisces with K2-E2

Molnár, László and Szabó, Róbert and Moskalik, P. A. and Nemec, J. and Guggenberger, E. and Plachy, Emese and Kolláth, Zoltán (2015) An RR Lyrae family portrait: 33 stars observed in Pisces with K2-E2. MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, 452 (4). pp. 4283-4296. ISSN 0035-8711

Preview

Text 1507.04714.pdf Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

A detailed analysis is presented of 33 RR Lyrae stars in Pisces observed with the Kepler space telescope over the 8.9-day long K2 Two-Wheel Concept Engineering Test. The sample includes not only fundamental-mode and first overtone (RRab and RRc) stars but the first two double-mode (RRd) stars that Kepler detected and the only modulated first-overtone star ever observed from space so far. The precision of the extracted K2 light curves made it possible to detect low-amplitude additional modes in all subtypes. All RRd and non-modulated RRc stars show the additional mode at PX /P1 ∼ 0.61 that was detected in previous space-based photometric measurements. A periodicity longer than the fundamental mode was tentatively identified in one RRab star that might belong to a gravity mode. We determined the photometric [Fe/H] values for all fundamental-mode stars and provide the preliminary results of our efforts to fit the double-mode stars with non-linear hydrodynamic pulsation models. The results from this short test run indicate that the K2 mission will be, and has started to be, an ideal tool to expand our knowledge about RR Lyrae stars. As a by-product of the target search and analysis, we identified 165 bona-fide double-mode RR Lyrae stars from the Catalina Sky Survey observations throughout the sky, 130 of which are new discoveries.

Actions (login required)

Edit Item