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Published July 2020 | Published
Journal Article Open

New Beta Cephei Stars from the KELT Project

Abstract

We present the results of a search for Galactic β Cephei stars, which are massive pulsating stars with both pressure modes and mixed modes. Thus, these stars can serve as benchmarks for seismological studies of the interiors of massive stars. We conducted the search by performing a frequency analysis on the optical light curves of known O- and B-type stars with data from the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope exoplanet survey. We identify 113 β Cephei stars, of which 86 are new discoveries, which altogether represent a 70% increase in the number currently known. An additional 97 candidates are identified. Among our targets, we find five new eclipsing binaries and 22 stars with equal frequency spacings suggestive of rotational splitting of nonradial pulsation modes. Candidates for runaway stars among our targets and a number of interesting individual objects are discussed. Most of the known and newly discovered β Cephei stars will be observed by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite mission, providing by far the most comprehensive observational data set of massive main-sequence pulsating stars of sufficient quality for detailed asteroseismic studies. Future analysis of these light curves has the potential to dramatically increase our understanding of the structure of stellar interiors and the physical processes taking place therein.

Additional Information

© 2020. The American Astronomical Society. Received 2019 July 25; revised 2020 March 27; accepted 2020 April 16; published 2020 June 18. J.L.-B. acknowledges support from FAPESP (grant 2017/23731-1). G.H. has been supported by the Polish NCN grant 2015/18/A/ST9/00578. L.B. acknowledges support from the NRF (South Africa) and thanks Mr. Trevor Robinson for database assistance. D.J.S. acknowledges support from the Pennsylvania State University's Eberly Research Fellowship. D.J.J. was supported through the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University, through a grant (60477) from the John Templeton Foundation and by National Science Foundation award AST-1440254. This project makes use of data from the KELT survey, including support from The Ohio State University, Vanderbilt University, and Lehigh University, along with the KELT follow-up collaboration. This work has made use of data from the European Space Agency (ESA) mission Gaia (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium). Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. This research has made use of NASA's Astrophysics Data System. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. This work has made use of the BeSS database, operated at LESIA, Observatoire de Meudon, France: http://basebe.obspm.fr. Facilities: TESS - , Gaia - , KELT. - Software: astropy (Astropy Collaboration et al. 2013), Period04 (Lenz & Breger 2005).

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Created:
August 22, 2023
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October 20, 2023