Issue |
A&A
Volume 672, April 2023
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A69 | |
Number of page(s) | 24 | |
Section | Stellar structure and evolution | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202245560 | |
Published online | 30 March 2023 |
Identifying and characterising the population of hot sub-luminous stars with multi-colour MeerLICHT data⋆
1
Department of Astrophysics/IMAPP, Radboud University, PO Box 9010 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands
e-mail: princy.ranaivomanana@ru.nl
2
Instituut voor Sterrenkunde, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
3
South African Astronomical Observatory, PO Box 9, Observatory, 7935 Cape Town, South Africa
4
Department of Astronomy & Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy, University of Cape Town, Private Bag X3, 7701 Rondebosch, South Africa
5
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Koenigstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
6
Guest Researcher, Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute, 162 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10010, USA
7
Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, PO Box 9513 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
Received:
28
November
2022
Accepted:
5
February
2023
Context. Colour–magnitude diagrams reveal a population of blue (hot) sub-luminous objects with respect to the main sequence. These hot sub-luminous stars are the result of evolutionary processes that require stars to expel their obscuring, hydrogen-rich envelopes to reveal the hot helium core. As such, these objects offer a direct window into the hearts of stars that are otherwise inaccessible to direct observation.
Aims. MeerLICHT is a wide-field optical telescope that collects multi-band photometric data in six band filters (u, g, r, i, z, and q), whose primary goals are to study transient phenomena, gravitational wave counterparts, and variable stars. We showcase MeerLICHT’s capabilities of detecting faint hot subdwarfs and identifying the dominant frequency in the photometric variability of these compact hot stars, in comparison to their Gaia DR3 data. We hunt for oscillations, which will be an essential ingredient for accurately probing stellar interiors in future asteroseismology.
Methods. Comparative MeerLICHT and Gaia colour–magnitude diagrams are presented as a way to select hot subdwarfs from our sample. A dedicated frequency determination technique is developed and applied to the selected candidates to determine their dominant variability using time-series data from MeerLICHT and Gaia DR3. We explore the power of both datasets in determining the dominant frequency.
Results. Using the g − i colour, MeerLICHT offers a colour–magnitude diagram that is comparable in quality to that of Gaia DR3. The former, however, is more sensitive to fainter objects. The MeerLICHT colour–colour diagrams allow for the study of different stellar populations. The frequency analysis of MeerLICHT and Gaia DR3 data demonstrates the superiority of our MeerLICHT multi-colour photometry in estimating the dominant frequency compared to the sparse Gaia DR3 data.
Conclusions. MeerLICHT’s multi-band photometry leads to the discovery of high-frequency faint subdwarfs. Continued observations tuned to asteroseismology will allow for mode identification using the method of amplitude ratios. Our MeerLICHT results are a proof-of-concept of the capacity of the BlackGEM instrument currently in the commissioning stage at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.
Key words: surveys / subdwarfs / stars: variables: general / Hertzsprung–Russell and C-M diagrams / techniques: photometric / methods: data analysis
A full list of the candidates with their derived periods (full Table A.1) is only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr (130.79.128.5) or via https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/672/A69
© The Authors 2023
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This article is published in open access under the Subscribe to Open model. Subscribe to A&A to support open access publication.
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.