Blazhko effect at the time of Kepler
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2015 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Proceedings of the 46th Conference on Variable Stars Research |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | http://var.astro.cz/oejv/issues/oejv0169.pdf |
| Field | Astronomy and astrophysics |
| Keywords | Blazhko effect; RR Lyrae; Kepler satellite |
| Description | I focus on the comparison of the knowledge of the enigmatic Blazhko phenomenon before and after space missions CoRoT and Kepler. These two telescopes opened the secret doors of the true diversity of the modulation of RR Lyrae stars. Among many interesting discoveries it was found that higher order multiplets are common characteristics of the frequency spectra of light curves of modulated stars, not unique behaviour of a few objects. This finding resulted in a new mathematical description of modulation which applies methods known from information transfer. Signs of higher radial modes and non-radial modes were detected only due to unprecedented precision of space observations. One of the most important discoveries of the Kepler satellite was the uncovering of the alternation of the height of maxima of light changes in modulated stars, the so called period doubling. Based on this new discovery models for explanation of the Blazhko effect were proposed. In addition, Kepler observations clearly showed that Blazhko effect can be irregular in many ways. Therefore, space missions have a major impact on understanding of the Blazhko effect. |
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