Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T23:37:06.802Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Horizontal Branch Evolution and RR Lyrae Star Pulsation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2016

Arthur N. Cox*
Affiliation:
Los Alamos Astrophysics, Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS B288 P.O. Box 1663, Los Alamos, NM 87545USA

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

For many years there has been a confrontation between stellar evolution and pulsation theories concerning the masses, luminosities, and compositions of the horizontal branch RR Lyrae variables. Masses obtained by Cox, Hodson & Clancy (CHC, 1983) were very low, but Kovacs (1985) and later Kovacs & Buchler (1988) suggested somewhat larger ones. Even later Simon & Cox (1991) verified CHC results, though still using the Los Alamos opacities. Petersen (1991, 1992) has also discussed this mass problem in some detail. The persistent discrepancy of 0.1 Mʘ or more between the evolution and pulsation masses was mostly ignored because neither theory could find any significant flaw in its analysis. Cox (1991), Kovacs, Buchler & Marom (1991), and Kovacs, Buchler, Marom, Iglesias & Rogers (1992) finally showed that larger double-mode pulsation masses, are consistent with evolution calculations to reproduce color-magnitude diagrams of globular clusters. Evolution tracks by many for years, especially the recent ones by Lee, Demarque & Zinn (1990), did require a much lower primordial helium abundance near the big bang value near Y = 0.23, and now this value, slightly enhanced by deep convection dredge-up in the earlier red giant stage, is also found to be appropriate for pulsation studies.

Type
II. Joint Discussions
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1995

References

Albada, T.S. van, and Baker, N.H. 1971, ApJ, 169, 311 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brocato, E., Castellani, V., and Ripepi, V. 1994 AJ, 107, 622 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, A.N. 1991, ApJ, 381, L71 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, A.N., Hodson, S.W., and Clancy, S.P. 1983, ApJ, 266, 94 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, A.N., and Stewart, J.N. 1970, ApJS, 19, 261 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kovacs, G. 1985, Acta Astron., 35, 37 Google Scholar
Kovacs, G. and Buchler, J.R. 1988 ApJ, 324, 1026 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kovacs, G., Buchler, J.R., and Marom, A. 1991, A&A, 252, L27 Google Scholar
Kovacs, G., Buchler, J.R., Marom, A., Iglesias, C.A., and Rogers, F.J. 1992, A&A, 259,L46 Google Scholar
Lee, Y-W., Demarque, P., and Zinn, R.J. 1990, ApJ, 350, 155 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petersen, J.O. 1991, A&A, 243, 246 Google Scholar
Petersen, J.O. 1992, A&A, 265, 555 Google Scholar
Sandage, A.R. 1993, AJ, 106, 703 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandage, A.R. 1987, The Second Conference on Faint Blue Stars, eds. Philip, A.G.D., Hayes, D.S., and Liebert, J.W. (Schenectady, L. Davis Press), p.41 Google Scholar
Simon, N.L., and Cox, A.N. 1991, ApJ, 376, 717 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strom, J., Carney, B.W., and Latham, D.W. 1992, PASP, 104, 591 Google Scholar