Frequency analysis of the first-overtone RR Lyrae stars based on Extended Aperture Photometry from K2 data^★

¹ Konkoly Observatory, Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences, Eötvös Loránd Research Network (ELKH); MTA Centre of Excellence, 1121 Konkoly Thege Miklós út 15–17, Budapest, Hungary
e-mail: henia@netzel.pl
² MTA CSFK Lendület Near-Field Cosmology Research Group, 1121 Konkoly Thege Miklós út 15–17, Budapest, Hungary
³ ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Institute of Physics, 1117, Pázmány Péter sétány 1/A, Budapest, Hungary
⁴ ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Gothard Astrophysical Observatory, Szent Imre h. u. 112, 9700 Szombathely, Hungary

Received: 7 December 2022
Accepted: 18 March 2023

Abstract

Context. Additional low-amplitude signals have been observed in many RR Lyrae stars separate from pulsations in radial modes. The most common of these are short-period signals forming a period ratio of around 0.60–0.65 with the first overtone and long-period signals forming a period ratio of around 0.68. The RR Lyrae stars may also exhibit quasi-periodic modulation in their light curves, the so-called Blazhko effect.

Aims. We used the extensive sample of the first-overtone RR Lyrae stars observed by the Kepler telescope during the K2 mission to search for and characterize additional low-amplitude signals. The K2 data provides space-based photometry for a statistically significant sample. Hence, this data is excellent for studying the pulsation properties of RR Lyrae stars in detail.

Methods. We used K2 space-based photometry for RR Lyrae candidates from Campaigns 0–19. We selected RR Lyrae stars pulsating in the first overtone and performed a frequency analysis for each star to characterize their frequency contents.

Results. We classified 452 stars as first-overtone RR Lyrae. From that sample, we selected 281 RR_0.61 stars, 67 RR_0.68 stars, and 68 Blazhko stars. We found particularly interesting stars that show all of the above phenomena simultaneously. We detected signals in RR_0.61 stars that form period ratios lower than those observed for the majority of stars of this type. These signals likely form a new sequence in the Petersen diagram, around a period ratio of 0.60. In 32 stars, we detected additional signals that form a period ratio close to that expected in RRd stars, but the classification of these stars as RRd is uncertain. We also report a discovery of additional signals in eight stars that form a new group in the Petersen diagram around the period ratio of 0.465–0.490. The nature of this periodicity remains unknown.