Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

Abstract: Ultra-low amplitude (ULA) and strange mode Cepheids are thought to be pulsating variable stars that are near to or are at the edges of the classical instability strip. Until now, a few dozen such variable star candidates have been found both in the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Milky Way. In this present work, we studied six ULA Cepheid candidates in the Milky Way, identified by Szab\'o et al. (2009) using CoRoT and 2MASS data. In order to identify their positions in the period--luminosity and color--magnitude diagrams, we used the Gaia DR3 parallax and brightness data of each star to calculate their reddening-free absolute magnitudes and distances. Furthermore, we calculated the Fourier parameters (e.g., period and amplitude) of the light variations based on CoRoT and TESS measurements, and established the long-term phase shifts for four out of six stars. Based on the results, we conclude that none of the six ULA Cepheid candidates are pulsating variable stars, but rather rotation-induced variable stars (rotational spotted and $\alpha^2$~Canum Venaticorum variables) that are either bluer or fainter than Cepheids would be.

Abstract: I compared with each other and with observations three energy sources to power intermediate luminosity optical transients (ILOTs) and conclude that only jets can power bright ILOTs with rapidly rising lightcurves. I present an expression for the power of the jets that a main sequence secondary star launches as it enters a common envelope evolution (CEE) with a primary giant star. The expression includes the Keplerian orbital period on the surface of the primary star, its total envelope mass, and the ratio of masses. I show that the shock that the secondary star excites in the envelope of the primary star cannot explain bright peaks in the lightcurves of ILOTs, and that powering by jets does much better in accounting for rapidly rising, about 10 days and less, peaks in the lightcurves of ILOTs than the recombination energy of the ejected mass. I strengthen previous claims that jets powered the Great Eruption of Eta Carinae, which was a luminous variable major eruption, and the luminous red novae (LRNe) V838 Mon and V1309 Scorpii. I therefore predict that the ejecta (nebula) of V1309 Scorpii will be observed in a decade or two to be bipolar. My main conclusion is that only jets can power a bright peak with a short rising time of ILOTs (LRNe) at CEE formation.

Abstract: Zeeman-Doppler imaging (ZDI) is used to reconstruct the surface magnetic field of late-type stars from high resolution spectropolarimetric observations. The results are usually described in terms of characteristics of the field topology, i.e. poloidality vs. toroidality and axi-symmetry vs. non-axisymmetry in addition to the field strength. We want to test how well these characteristics are preserved when applying the ZDI method on simulated data, i.e. how accurately the field topology is preserved and to what extent stellar parameters influence the reconstruction. We use published magnetic field data from direct numerical MHD simulations. These have variable rotation rates, and hence represent different levels of activity, of an otherwise Sun-like setup. Our ZDI reconstruction is based on spherical harmonics expansion. By comparing the original values to those of the reconstructed images, we study the ability to reconstruct the surface magnetic field in terms of various characteristics of the field. The main large-scale features are reasonably well recovered, but the strength of the recovered magnetic field is just a fraction of the original input. The quality of the reconstruction shows clear correlations with the data quality. Furthermore, there are some spurious dependencies between stellar parameters and the characteristics of the field. Our study uncovers some limits of ZDI. Firstly, the recovered field strength will generally be lower than the "real" value as smaller structures with opposite polarities will be blurred in the inversion. Secondly, the axi-symmetry is overestimated. The poloidality vs. toroidality is better recovered. The reconstruction works better for a stronger field and faster rotation velocity. Still, the ZDI method works surprisingly well even for a weaker field and slow rotation, provided the data has a high signal-to-noise and good rotation phase coverage.