No Arabic abstract
Diffusion of atoms can be important during quiescent phases of stellar evolution. Particularly in the very thin inert envelopes of subdwarf B stars, diffusive movements will considerably change the envelope structure and the surface abundances on a short timescale. Also, the subdwarfs will inherit the effects of diffusion in their direct progenitors, namely giants near the tip of the red giant branch. This will influence the global evolution and the pulsational properties of subdwarf B stars. We investigate the impact of gravitational settling, thermal diffusion and concentration diffusion on the evolution and pulsations of subdwarf B stars. Our diffusive stellar models are compared with models evolved without diffusion. We constructed subdwarf B models with a mass of 0.465 Msun from a 1 and 3 Msun ZAMS progenitor. The low mass star ignited helium in an energetic flash, while the intermediate mass star started helium fusion gently. For each progenitor type we computed series with and without atomic diffusion. Atomic diffusion in red giants causes the helium core mass at the onset of helium ignition to be larger. We find an increase of 0.0015 Msun for the 1 Msun model and 0.0036 Msun for the 3 Msun model. The effects on the red giant surface abundances are small after the first dredge up. The evolutionary tracks of the diffusive subdwarf B models are shifted to lower surface gravities and effective temperatures due to outward diffusion of hydrogen. This affects both the frequencies of the excited modes and the overall frequency spectrum. Especially the structure and pulsations of the post-non-degenerate sdB star are drastically altered, proving that atomic diffusion cannot be ignored in these stars.
In 2007, a companion with planetary mass was found around the pulsating subdwarf B star V391 Pegasi with the timing method, indicating that a previously undiscovered population of substellar companions to apparently single subdwarf B stars might exist. Following this serendipitous discovery, the EXOTIME (http://www.na.astro.it/~silvotti/exotime/) monitoring program has been set up to follow the pulsations of a number of selected rapidly pulsating subdwarf B stars on time-scales of several years with two immediate observational goals: 1) determine Pdot of the pulsational periods P 2) search for signatures of substellar companions in O-C residuals due to periodic light travel time variations, which would be tracking the central stars companion-induced wobble around the center of mass. These sets of data should therefore at the same time: on the one hand be useful to provide extra constraints for classical asteroseismological exercises from the Pdot (comparison with local evolutionary models), and on the other hand allow to investigate the preceding evolution of a target in terms of possible binary evolution by extending the otherwise unsuccessful search for companions to potentially very low masses. While timing pulsations may be an observationally expensive method to search for companions, it samples a different range of orbital parameters, inaccessible through orbital photometric effects or the radial velocity method: the latter favours massive close-in companions, whereas the timing method becomes increasingly more sensitive towards wider separations. In this paper we report on the status of the on-going observations and coherence analysis for two of the currently five targets, revealing very well-behaved pulsational characteristics in HS 0444+0458, while showing HS 0702+6043 to be more complex than previously thought.
Pulsations in subdwarf B stars are attributed to radiative levitation of iron-group elements in the stellar envelope. Until now, only iron diffusion is accounted for in stellar models used for sdB seismology. However, nickel has also been suggested as a contributor to the opacity bump that drives the pulsation modes. Stellar models including time-dependent atomic diffusion, as we compute here, are needed to evaluate the importance of different iron-group elements for mode driving. We perform detailed calculations of radiative accelerations of H, He, C, N, O, Ne, Mg, Fe and Ni and include these in Burgers diffusion equations. We compute the evolution and non-adiabatic pulsations of a typical subdwarf B star. We show that, despite its lower initial abundance, nickel accumulates to comparable mass fractions as iron in the sdB envelope. For accurate determination of pulsation frequencies and mode instability, it is essential that diffusion of both metals are included in stellar models. The role of other iron-group elements remain to be evaluated.
The survey phase of the Kepler Mission includes a number of hot subdwarf B (sdB) stars to search for nonradial pulsations. We present our analysis of two sdB stars that are found to be g-mode pulsators of the V1093 Her class. These two stars also display the distinct irradiation effect typical of sdB stars with a close M-dwarf companion with orbital periods of less than half a day. Because the orbital period is so short, the stars should be in synchronous rotation, and if so, the rotation period should imprint itself on the multiplet structure of the pulsations. However, we do not find clear evidence for such rotational splitting. Though the stars do show some frequency spacings that are consistent with synchronous rotation, they also display multiplets with splittings that are much smaller. Longer-duration time series photometry will be needed to determine if those small splittings are in fact rotational splitting, or caused by slow amplitude or phase modulation. Further data should also improve the signal-to-noise, perhaps revealing lower amplitude periodicities that could confirm the expectation of synchronous rotation. The pulsation periods seen in these stars show period spacings that are suggestive of high-overtone g-mode pulsations.
We report the discovery of four new pulsating subdwarf B (sdBV) stars from Campaign 7 of the Kepler spacecrafts K2 mission. EPICs 215776487, 217280630, 218366972, and 218717602 are all gravity (g)-mode pulsators and we also detect two pressure (p)-mode pulsations in EPIC 218717602. We detect asymptotic l=1 sequences in all four stars, allowing us to identify nearly all of the g modes. We detect evenly-spaced frequency multiplets in EPIC 218717602, from which we determine a rotation period near seven days. Spectroscopic observations determine that EPIC 218366972, is in a 5.92d binary with most likely a white dwarf companion of canonical mass while the others have no detected companions. As we detect no multiplets in EPIC 218366972, it is added to the growing list of subsynchronously rotating stars. With 40 Kepler-detected sdBV stars and a growing number of TESS publications, we update an examination of the group properties to provide direction for models. We notice a correlation between effective temperature and period of maximum pulsation amplitude, at least for g-mode pulsations, and update the previously-observed effective temperature-rotation period relation.
We investigate the possibility of nearly-equally spaced periods in 13 hot subdwarf B (sdB) stars observed with the Kepler spacecraft and one observed with CoRoT. Asymptotic limits for gravity (g-)mode pulsations provide relationships between equal period spacings of modes with differing degrees and relationships between periods of the same radial order but differing degrees. Period transforms, Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests, and linear least-squares fits have been used to detect and determine the significance of equal period spacings. We have also used Monte Carlo simulations to estimate the likelihood that the detected spacings could be produced randomly. Period transforms for nine of the Kepler stars indicate ell=1 period spacings, with five also showing peaks for ell=2 modes. 12 stars indicate ell=1 modes using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test while another shows solely ell=2 modes. Monte Carlo results indicate that equal period spacings are significant in 10 stars above 99% confidence and 13 of the 14 are above 94% confidence. For 12 stars, the various methods find consistent regular period spacing values to within the errors, two others show some inconsistencies, likely caused by binarity, and the last has significant detections but the mode assignment disagrees between methods. We find a common ell=1 period spacing spanning a range from 231 to 272 s allowing us to correlate pulsation modes with 222 periodicities and that the ell=2 period spacings are related to the ell=1 spacings by the asymptotic relationship $1/sqrt{3}$. We briefly discuss the impact of equal period spacings which indicate low-degree modes with a lack of significant mode trappings.