The Asteroseismological Richness of RCB and dLHdC Stars

Abstract

RCB stars are L ≈ 10 ^4 L _⊙ solar-mass objects that can exhibit large periods of extinction from dust ejection episodes. Many exhibit semi-regular pulsations in the range of 30–50 days with semi-amplitudes of 0.05–0.3 mag. Space-based photometry has discovered that solar-like oscillations are ubiquitous in hydrogen-dominated stars that have substantial outer convective envelopes, so we explore the hypothesis that the pulsations in RCB stars and the closely related dustless hydrogen-deficient carbon (dLHdC) stars, which have large convective outer envelopes of nearly pure helium, have a similar origin. Through stellar modeling and pulsation calculations, we find that the observed periods and amplitudes of these pulsations follows the well-measured phenomenology of their H-rich brethren. In particular, we show that the observed modes are likely of angular orders l = 0, 1, and 2 and predominantly of an acoustic nature (i.e., p -modes with low radial order). The modes with largest amplitude are near the acoustic cutoff frequency appropriately rescaled to the helium-dominated envelope, and the observed amplitudes are consistent with that seen in high-luminosity ( L > 10 ^3 L _⊙ ) H-rich giants. We also find that for T _eff ≳ 5400 K, an hydrogen-deficient carbon stellar model exhibits a radiative layer between two outer convective zones, creating a g -mode cavity that supports much longer period (≈100 days) oscillations. Our initial work was focused primarily on the adiabatic modes, but we expect that subsequent space-based observations of these targets (e.g., with TESS or Plato) are likely to lead to a larger set of detected frequencies that would allow for a deeper study of the interiors of these rare stars.

Keywords

• Hydrogen deficient stars
• Helium-rich stars
• Stellar mergers
• White dwarf stars