The dog that didn't bark: non-variable field stars in the RR Lyrae Instability Strip

Lu, Yuxi - Mateu, Cecilia - Stanek, K. Z.

Resumen:

RR Lyrae stars (RRLs) are easy to identify thanks to their large photometric variation and short periods. All stars in the RRL instability strip are pulsators is often a hidden assumption in most stellar population studies using RRLs. Non-variable stars in the instability strip have been discovered for Cepheids and δ Scuti, and in this paper, we report the discovery of non-variable filed stars in the RRL instability strip. Using a high-quality sample selected from Gaia DR3, we find at least 15% of the stars in the empirical instability strip where the variable fraction is > 0.7 have near-zero photometric variations or variations that are significantly smaller than typical RRLs. The non-variable stars are mostly bright and close by, on cold orbits in the Galactic plane. Metallicity from Gaia BP/RP spectra suggests the non-variable stars have an average metallicity is ~ -0.5 dex, with a peak at 0. The discovery of these non-variable stars in the RRL instability strip challenges our understanding of stellar physics and further investigation is needed to understand the origin of these stars.

Detalles Bibliográficos
2024
ANII: FCE_1_2021_1_167524
RR Lyrae variable stars
Pulsating variable stars
Time series analysis
Inglés
Universidad de la República
COLIBRI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12008/48862
Acceso abierto
Licencia Creative Commons Atribución (CC - By 4.0)