No Arabic abstract
In an extended photometric campaign of RR Lyrae variables of the globular cluster M3, an aberrant light-curve, non-Blazhko RRab star, V123, was detected. Based on its brightness, colors and radial velocity curve, V123 is a bona fide member of M3. The light curve of V123 exhibits neither a bump preceding light minimum, nor a hump on the rising branch, and has a longer than normal rise time, with a convex shape. Similar shape characterizes the mean light curves of some large-modulation-amplitude Blazhko stars, but none of the regular RRab variables with similar pulsation periods. This peculiar object thus mimics Blazhko variables without showing any evidence of periodic amplitude and/or phase modulation. We cannot find any fully convincing answer to the peculiar behavior of V123, however, the phenomenon raises again the possibility that rotation and aspect angle might play a role in the explanation of the Blazhko phenomenon, and some source of inhomogeneity acts (magnetic field, chemical inhomogeneity) that deforms the radial pulsation of Blazhko stars during the modulation.
We present our results of searching for differences in light curves of modulated and non-modulated RRab stars in the Galactic bulge. We examined a sample of more than 8000 stars. The most important results are that Blazhko stars have shorter pulsation periods, less skewed mean light curves, lower mean amplitudes, larger rise-time, no difference in spatial distribution and metallicity.
The Blazhko effect is the conspicuous amplitude and phase modulation of the pulsation of RR Lyrae stars that was discovered in the early 20th century. The field of study of this mysterious modulation has recently been invigorated thanks to the space photometric missions providing long, uninterrupted, ultra-precise time series data. In this paper I give a brief overview of the new observational findings related to the Blazhko effect, like extreme modulations, irregular modulation cycles and additional periodicities. I argue that these findings together with dedicated ground-based efforts now provide us with a fairly complete picture and a good starting point to theoretical investigations. Indeed, new, unpredicted dynamical phenomena have been discovered in Blazhko RR Lyrae stars, such as period doubling, high-order resonances, three-mode pulsation and low-dimensional chaos. These led to the proposal of a new explanation to this century-old enigma, namely a high-order resonance between radial modes. Along these lines I present the latest efforts and advances from the theoretical point of view. Lastly, amplitude variations in Cepheids are discussed.
With increasingly accurate data on RR Lyrae stars we find that the Blazhko effect may be a rule rather than an exception. However, we still do not know what is the cause of this mysterious amplitude and phase modulation. In my talk, I intended to give a glimpse of the properties of Blazhko stars, presenting recent findings concerning what makes Blazhko stars different from their non-modulated counterparts. Recent observations of Blazhko stars obtained from space give some important clues that deserve further exploration.
This paper summarizes the main results of our recent study of the non-Blazhko RR Lyrae stars observed with the Kepler space telescope. These stars offer the opportunity for studying the stability of the pulsations of RR Lyrae stars and for providing a reference against which the Blazhko RR Lyrae stars can be compared. Of particular interest is the stability of the low-dispersion (sigma < 1mmag) light curves constructed from ~18,000 long-cadence (30-min) and (for FN Lyr and AW Dra) the ~150,000 short-cadence (1-min) photometric data points. Fourier-based [Fe/H] values and other physical characteristics are also derived. When the observed periods are compared with periods computed with the Warsaw non-linear convective pulsation code better agreement is achieved assuming pulsational L and M values rather than the (higher) evolutionary L and M values.
We present first direct evidence of modulation in the $K$-band of Blazhko-type RR Lyrae stars that are identified by their secular modulations in the I-band data of OGLE-IV. A method has been developed to decompose the $K$-band light variation into two parts originating from the temperature and the radius changes using synthetic data of atmosphere-model grids. The amplitudes of the temperature and the radius variations derived from the method for non-Blazhko RRab stars are in very good agreement with the results of the Baade-Wesselink analysis of RRab stars in the M3 globular cluster confirming the applicability and correctness of the method. It has been found that the Blazhko modulation is primarily driven by the change in the temperature variation. The radius variation plays a marginal part, moreover it has an opposite sign as if the Blazhko effect was caused by the radii variations. This result reinforces the previous finding based on the Baade-Wesselink analysis of M3 (NGC 5272) RR Lyrae, that significant modulation of the radius variations can only be detected in radial-velocity measurements, which relies on spectral lines that form in the uppermost atmospheric layers. Our result gives the first insight into the energetics and dynamics of the Blazhko phenomenon, hence it puts strong constraints on its possible physical explanations.