Mining Sky Surveys for Astrophysically Interesting Variable Stars: The Cepheid Period Range

Authors

• Edward G. Schmidt, University of Nebraska at LincolnFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2009

Comments

Published in AIP Conference Proceedings 1170. Stellar Pulsation Challenges for Theory and Observation, edited by J. A. Guzik and P. A. Bradley. Copyright 2009 American Institute of Physics. Used by permission.

Abstract

We have undertaken a project to discover new type II Cepheids in two large-area sky surveys. However, most of the candidates from the surveys differ from type II Cepheids in their amplitude and period distributions and they form a separate, cooler sequence relative to the Cepheids in a temperature-gravity plot. We refer to these objects as "Cepheid-lke" stars. Many exhibit unstable pulsation which we illustrate with representative light curves.