Browsing by Subject "stars: oscillations (including pulsations)"
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Item Dark Stars: Improved Models And First Pulsation Results(2015-02) Rindler-Daller, T.; Montgomery, Michael H.; Freese, K.; Winget, D. E.; Paxton, B.; Montgomery, Michael H.; Winget, D. E.We use the stellar evolution code MESA to study dark stars (DSs). DSs, which are powered by dark matter (DM) self-annihilation rather than by nuclear fusion, may be the first stars to form in the universe. We compute stellar models for accreting DSs with masses up to 10(6) M-circle dot. The heating due to DM annihilation is self-consistently included, assuming extended adiabatic contraction of DM within the minihalos in which DSs form. We find remarkably good overall agreement with previous models, which assumed polytropic interiors. There are some differences in the details, with positive implications for observability. We found that, in the mass range of 10(4)-10(5) M-circle dot, our DSs are hotter by a factor of 1.5 than those in Freese et al., are smaller in radius by a factor of 0.6, denser by a factor of three to four, and more luminous by a factor of two. Our models also confirm previous results, according to which supermassive DSs are very well approximated by (n = 3)-polytropes. We also perform a first study of DS pulsations. Our DS models have pulsation modes with timescales ranging from less than a day to more than two years in their rest frames, at z similar to 15, depending on DM particle mass and overtone number. Such pulsations may someday be used to identify bright, cool objects uniquely as DSs; if properly calibrated, they might, in principle, also supply novel standard candles for cosmological studies.Item Photometric Variability In A Warm, Strongly Magnetic Dq White Dwarf, SDSS J103655.39+652252.2(2013-06) Williams, Kurtis A.; Winget, D. E.; Montgomery, Michael H.; Dufour, Patrick; Kepler, S. O.; Hermes, J. J.; Falcon, Ross E.; Winget, K. I.; Bolte, Michael; Rubin, Kate H. R.; Liebert, James; Winget, D. E.; Montgomery, Michael H.; Hermes, J. J.; Falcon, Ross E.; Winget, K. I.We present the discovery of photometric variability in the DQ white dwarf SDSS J103655.39+652252.2 (SDSS J1036+6522). Time-series photometry reveals a coherent monoperiodic modulation at a period of 1115.64751(67) s with an amplitude 0.442% +/- 0.024%; no other periodic modulations are observed with amplitudes greater than or similar to 0.13%. The period, amplitude, and phase of this modulation are constant within errors over 16 months. The spectrum of SDSS J1036+6522 shows magnetic splitting of carbon lines, and we use Paschen-Back formalism to develop a grid of model atmospheres for mixed carbon and helium atmospheres. Our models, while reliant on several simplistic assumptions, nevertheless match the major spectral and photometric properties of the star with a self-consistent set of parameters: T-eff approximate to 15,500 K, log g approximate to 9, log(C/He) = -1.0, and a mean magnetic field strength of 3.0 +/- 0.2 MG. The temperature and abundances strongly suggest that SDSS J1036+6522 is a transition object between the hot, carbon-dominated DQs and the cool, helium-dominated DQs. The variability of SDSS J1036+6522 has characteristics similar to those of the variable hot carbon-atmosphere white dwarfs (DQVs), however, its temperature is significantly cooler. The pulse profile of SDSS J1036+6522 is nearly sinusoidal, in contrast with the significantly asymmetric pulse shapes of the known magnetic DQVs. If the variability in SDSS J1036+6522 is due to the same mechanism as other DQVs, then the pulse shape is not a definitive diagnostic on the absence of a strong magnetic field in DQVs. It remains unclear whether the root cause of the variability in SDSS J1036+6522 and the other hot DQVs is the same.