English

Non-evolutionary effects on period change in Magellanic Cepheids

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2025-01-10 v2 Astrophysics of Galaxies

Abstract

Classical Cepheids are a cornerstone class of pulsators, fundamental to testing stellar evolution and pulsation theories. Their secular period changes, characterized through OCO-C (Observed minus Calculated) diagrams, offer valuable insights into their evolution. While evolutionary period changes are well understood from both observational and theoretical perspectives, shorter timescale period changes (on the order of (\sim 102^{2}-104^{4} days) - known as non-evolutionary period changes are yet to be systematically explored. In this work, we present a detailed and comprehensive search for non-evolutionary period changes using OCO-C analysis of Magellanic Cloud (MC) Cepheids, based on 20+ years of OGLE photometry data. Our sample includes both the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) Cepheids, focusing on single radial mode Cepheids (both fundamental (FU) and first overtone (FO) modes). The results are grouped into two phenomena: (a) Cepheids in binary systems (b) Non-linear period changes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2501.01777,
  title  = {Non-evolutionary effects on period change in Magellanic Cepheids},
  author = {R. S. Rathour and R. Smolec and G. Hajdu and P. Karczmarek and V. Hocdé and O. Ziółkowska and I. Soszyński and A. Udalski},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.01777},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

7 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to Contributions of the Astronomical Observatory Skalnate Pleso as proceedings for "Binary and Multiple Stars in the Era of Big Sky Surveys"

R2 v1 2026-06-28T20:55:25.448Z