SMuK 2023 – scientific programme

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EP: Fachverband Extraterrestrische Physik

EP 9: Poster

EP 9.10: Poster

Wednesday, March 22, 2023, 17:30–19:00, HSZ OG1

Characterization of B supergiant variability — •Suryani Guha^1,2, Michaela Kraus¹, and Julieta Arias Sanchez¹ — ¹Astronomical Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Ondrejov, Czech Republic — ²Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

B supergiants (BSGs) are famous for their spectroscopic variability that has been assigned to pulsations and related changes in their stellar wind properties. The pulsation modes of BSGs are strongly correlated to the stellar evolution phase. When a massive star has lost significant mass during its red-supergiant stage, it would return to the blue region in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram and spend a part of the core-He burning stage as a BSG. In this particular phase it excites many pulsation modes including radial strange modes. The latter have been proposed to facilitate mass-loss. Our studies utilize data from the TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission, which revealed that numerous BSGs display a rather irregular behaviour of their light curves, a likely indicator of radial strange mode pulsations. The optical spectra obtained from our observation campaign with the PEREK 2-m telescope are analyzed to search for variations in temperature and radius. Any detected variability can be directly linked with radial pulsations. Moreover changes in the strength and profile of the H-alpha line provide complementary information about wind variability. In this poster we will present highlights from a few interesting stars selected from our target list.