No Arabic abstract
The number of stars observed by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) project in the Galactic bulge offers an invaluable chance to study RR Lyrae stars in a statistical manner. We used data of 3141 fundamental-mode RR Lyrae stars showing the Blazhko effect observed in OGLE-IV to investigate a possible connection between modulation amplitudes and periods, light curve and pulsation characteristics. We found that there is no simple monotonic correlation between any combination of two parameters concerning the Blazhko and pulsation amplitudes, periods and the shape of the light curves. There are only systematic limits. There is a bottom limit of the modulation period with respect to the pulsation period. We also found that the possible range of modulation amplitudes decreases with increasing pulsation period which could point towards that the Blazhko effect is suppressed in cooler, larger, more luminous and less metal abundant bulge RR Lyrae stars. Our investigation revealed that the distribution of the modulation periods can be described with two populations of stars with the mean modulation periods of 48 and 186 days. There is a certain region with a low density of the modulated stars, which we call the Blazhko valley, in the pulsation period-modulation period plane. Based on the similarity of the modulation envelopes, basically every star can be assigned to one of six morphological classes. Double modulation was found in 25 per cent of the studied stars. Only 6.3 per cent of modulated stars belongs to the Oosterhoff group II.
We present the first paper of a series focused on the Blazhko effect in RR Lyrae type stars pulsating in the fundamental mode, that are located in the Galactic bulge. A~comprehensive overview about the incidence rate and light-curve characteristics of the Blazhko stars is given. We analysed 8,282 stars having the best quality data in the OGLE-IV survey, and found that at least $40.3$,% of stars show modulation of their light curves. The number of Blazhko stars we identified is 3,341, which is the largest sample ever studied implying the most relevant statistical results currently available. Using combined data sets with OGLE-III observations, we found that 50,% of stars that show unresolved close peaks to the main component in OGLE-IV are actually Blazhko stars with extremely long periods. Blazhko stars with modulation occur preferentially among RR Lyrae stars with shorter pulsation periods in the Galactic bulge. Fourier amplitude and phase coefficients based on the mean light curves appear to be substantially lower for Blazhko stars than for stars with unmodulated light curve in average. We derived new relations for the compatibility parameter $D_{m}$ in $I$ passband and relations that allow for differentiating modulated and non-modulated stars easily on the basis of $R_{31}$, $phi_{21}$ and $phi_{31}$. Photometric metallicities, intrinsic colours and absolute magnitudes computed using empirical relations are the same for Blazhko and non-modulated stars in the Galactic bulge suggesting no correlation between the occurrence of the Blazhko effect and these parameters.
We present the analysis of the Blazhko effect - quasi-periodic modulation of pulsation amplitude and/or phase - in the Galactic bulge first overtone RR Lyrae stars (RRc). We used the data gathered during the fourth phase of the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE). Out of 10 826 analyzed RRc stars, Blazhko effect was detected in 607 stars which constitute 5.6 percent of the sample. It is the largest and most homogeneous sample of modulated RRc stars analyzed so far. Modulation periods cover a wide range, from slightly above 2 d to nearly 3000 d. Multiperiodic modulation was detected in 47 stars. The appearance of modulation in the frequency domain was studied in detail. Modulation manifests either as close doublets or as equidistant triplets and multiplets centered on radial mode frequency and its harmonics. In a significant fraction (29 percent) of stars, we have detected the modulation frequency itself, which corresponds to the modulation of the mean stellar brightness. Our search for period doubling effect, that was discovered recently in modulated fundamental mode RR Lyrae stars, and triggered development of new model behind the Blazhko modulation, yielded negative result. In 104 stars we detected additional signals that could correspond to both radial and non-radial modes. Statistical properties of modulated stars were analyzed in detail and confronted with properties of non-modulated stars and of modulated fundamental mode RR Lyrae stars. Our analysis provides constraints for the models to explain the Blazhko phenomenon, which still remains a puzzle more than hundred years after its discovery.
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.
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.
We present the most comprehensive picture ever obtained of the central parts of the Milky Way probed with RR Lyrae variable stars. This is a collection of 38257 RR Lyr stars detected over 182 square degrees monitored photometrically by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) in the most central regions of the Galactic bulge. The sample consists of 16804 variables found and published by the OGLE collaboration in 2011 and 21453 RR Lyr stars newly detected in the photometric databases of the fourth phase of the OGLE survey (OGLE-IV). 93% of the OGLE-IV variables were previously unknown. The total sample consists of 27258 RRab, 10825 RRc, and 174 RRd stars. We provide OGLE-IV I- and V-band light curves of the variables along with their basic parameters. About 300 RR Lyr stars in our collection are plausible members of 15 globular clusters. Among others, we found the first pulsating variables that may belong to the globular cluster Terzan 1 and the first RRd star in the globular cluster M54. Our survey also covers the center and outskirts of the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy enabling studies of the spatial distribution of the old stellar population from this galaxy. A group of double-mode RR Lyr stars with period ratios around 0.740 form a stream in the sky that may be a relic of a cluster or a dwarf galaxy tidally disrupted by the Milky Way. Three of our RR Lyr stars experienced a pulsation mode switching from double-mode to single fundamental mode or vice versa. We also present the first known RRd stars with large-amplitude Blazhko effect.