English

Pulsations and outbursts in Be stars: Small differences - big impacts

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2016-11-04 v1

Abstract

New high-cadence observations with BRITE covering many months confirm that coupled pairs of nonradial pulsation modes are widespread among early-type Be stars. With the difference frequency between the parental variations they may form a roughly sinusoidal variability or the amplitude may cyclicly vary. A first - amplified - beat pattern is also found. In all three cases the amplitudes of difference frequencies can exceed the amplitude sum of the base frequencies, and modulations of the star-to-circumstellar-disk mass-transfer rate may be associated with these slow variations. This suggests more strongly than any earlier observations that significant dissipation of pulsational energy in the atmosphere may be a cause of mass ejections from Be stars. A unifying interpretative concept is presented.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1611.01113,
  title  = {Pulsations and outbursts in Be stars: Small differences - big impacts},
  author = {D. Baade and Th. Rivinius and A. Pigulski and A. Carciofi and G. Handler and R. Kuschnig and Ch. Martayan and A. Mehner and A. F. J. Moffat and H. Pablo and A. Popowicz and S. M. Rucinski and G. A. Wade and W. W. Weiss and K. Zwintz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1611.01113},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

10 pages, 3 figures, preliminary formatting. To appear in Proc. 2nd BRITE-Constellation Science Conference: 'small satellites - big science', Innsbruck, Aug. 2016, eds.: G. Stachowski, E. Poretti, and J. Matthews

R2 v1 2026-06-22T16:41:14.688Z