No Arabic abstract
The so-called H$alpha$ third emission occurs around pulsation phase $varphi$=0.30. It has been observed for the first time in 2011 in some RR Lyrae stars. The emission intensity is very weak, and its profile is a tiny persistent hump in the red side-line profile. We report the first observation of the H$alpha$ third emission in RR Lyr itself (HD 182989), the brightest RR Lyrae star in the sky. New spectra were collected in 2013-2014 with the Aurelie}spectrograph (resolving power R=22$,$700, T152, Observatoire de Haute-Provence, France) and in 2016-2017 with the eShel spectrograph (R=11$,$000, T035, Observatoire de Chelles, France). In addition, observations obtained in 1997 with the Elodie spectrograph (R=42$,$000, T193, Observatoire de Haute-Provence, France) were reanalyzed. The H$alpha$ third emission is clearly detected in the pulsation phase interval $varphi$=0.188-0.407, that is, during about 20% of the period. Its maximum flux with respect to the continuum is about 13%. The presence of this third emission and its strength both seem to depend only marginally on the Blazhko phase. The physical origin of the emission is probably due to the infalling motion of the highest atmospheric layers, which compresses and heats the gas that is located immediately above the rising shock wave. The infalling velocity of the hot compressed region is supersonic, almost 50 km$cdot$s$^{-1}$, while the shock velocity may be much lower in these pulsation phases. When the H$alpha$ third emission appears, the shock is certainly no longer radiative because its intensity is not sufficient to produce a blueshifted emission component within the H$alpha$ profile. At phase $varphi$=0.40, the shock wave is certainly close to its complete dissipation in the atmosphere.
We present template radial velocity curves of $ab$-type RR Lyrae stars constructed from high-precision measurements of ${rm Halpha}$, ${rm Hbeta}$, and ${rm Hgamma}$ lines. Amplitude correlations between the Balmer line velocity curves, Johnson $V$-band, and SDSS $g$- and $r$-band light curves are also derived. Compared to previous methods, these templates and derived correlations reduce the uncertainty in measured systemic (center-of-mass) velocities of RR Lyrae stars by up to 15 {kms}, and will be of particular interest to wide-area spectroscopic surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and LAMOST Experiment for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (LEGUE).
We report here on two types of cyclic variations that can be observed in the periods of RR Lyr stars, i.e., the Blazhko and the light-time effects. The former has been investigated by studying the amplitude variations recorded in RR Lyr itself, firstly by Kepler and then by the network of the Very Tiny Telescopes (VTTs). The latter on the basis of the new spectroscopic observations of the most promising candidate, KIC 2831097. The start of the search for binary candidates in the RR Lyr stars observed with the TAROT telescopes is also announced.
We report on the first simultaneous observation of an H-alpha Moreton wave, the corresponding EUV fast coronal waves, and a slow and bright EUV wave (typical EIT wave). Associated with an X6.9 flare that occurred on 2011 August 9 at the active region NOAA 11263, we observed a Moreton wave in the H-alpha images taken by the Solar Magnetic Activity Research Telescope (SMART) at Hida Observatory of Kyoto University. In the EUV images obtained by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) we found not only the corresponding EUV fast bright coronal wave, but also the EUV fast faint wave that is not associated with the H-alpha Moreton wave. We also found a slow EUV wave, which corresponds to a typical EIT wave. Furthermore, we observed, for the first time, the oscillations of a prominence and a filament, simultaneously, both in the H-alpha and EUV images. To trigger the oscillations by the flare-associated coronal disturbance, we expect a coronal wave as fast as the fast-mode MHD wave with the velocity of about 570 - 800 km/s. These velocities are consistent with those of the observed Moreton wave and the EUV fast coronal wave.
Though FM Del has been considered as a RR Lyr star by Preston et al. in 1959 (following discovery by Huth, 1957), Huth (1960) eventually changed his mind by showing that it is in fact a cepheid of W Vir type of period of 3.95452 days. Various authors since then have considered it as a cepheid indeed, with the exception of Wils et al. (2006) who list this star in their RR Lyr catalog with a period of 0.79688 days. On this basis, FM Del was added to Tarot RR Lyr program. We present here these observations which confirm the cepheid type.
The stellar parameters of RR Lyrae stars vary considerably over a pulsation cycle, and their determination is crucial for stellar modelling. We present a detailed spectroscopic analysis of the pulsating star RR Lyr, the prototype of its class, over a complete pulsation cycle, based on high-resolution spectra collected at the 2.7-m telescope of McDonald Observatory. We used simultaneous photometry to determine the accurate pulsation phase of each spectrum and determined the effective temperature, the shape of the depth-dependent microturbulent velocity, and the abundance of several elements, for each phase. The surface gravity was fixed to 2.4. Element abundances resulting from our analysis are stable over the pulsation cycle. However, a variation in ionisation equilibrium is observed around minimum radius. We attribute this mostly to a dynamical acceleration contributing to the surface gravity. Variable turbulent convection on time scales longer than the pulsation cycle has been proposed as a cause for the Blazhko effect. We test this hypothesis to some extent by using the derived variable depth-dependent microturbulent velocity profiles to estimate their effect on the stellar magnitude. These effects turn out to be wavelength-dependent and much smaller than the observed light variations over the Blazhko cycle: if variations in the turbulent motions are entirely responsible for the Blazhko effect, they must surpass the scales covered by the microturbulent velocity. This work demonstrates the possibility of a self-consistent spectroscopic analysis over an entire pulsation cycle using static atmosphere models, provided one takes into account certain features of a rapidly pulsating atmosphere.