Open AccessA weakly non‐adiabatic one‐zone model of stellar pulsations: application to Mira stars
Author(s) -
Munteanu Andreea,
GarcíaBerro Enrique,
José Jordi
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06457.x
Subject(s) - physics , stars , adiabatic process , variable star , astrophysics , light curve , luminosity , variable (mathematics) , nonlinear system , statistical physics , astronomy , mathematical analysis , galaxy , quantum mechanics , mathematics
There is growing observational evidence that the irregular changes in the light curves of certain variable stars might be due to deterministic chaos. Supporting these conclusions, several simple models of non‐linear oscillators have been shown to be capable of reproducing the observed complex behaviour. In this paper, we introduce a non‐linear, non‐adiabatic one‐zone model intended to reveal the factors leading to irregular luminosity variations in some pulsating stars. We have studied and characterized the dynamical behaviour of the oscillator as the input parameters are varied. The parametric study implied values corresponding to stellar models in the family of long period variables and in particular of Mira‐type stars. We draw attention to certain solutions that reproduce with reasonable accuracy the observed behaviour of some peculiar Mira variables.