Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Masses For Galactic Beat Cepheids, Noella L. D'Cruz, Siobahn M. Morgan, Erika Böhm-Vitense

Faculty Publications

Accurate mass determinations for Cepheids may be used to determine the degree of excess mixing in the interiors of their main-sequence progenitors : the larger the excess mixing, the larger the luminosity of the Cepheid of a given mass, or the smaller the mass of a Cepheid with given luminosity. Dynamical masses determined recently for a few Cepheid binaries indicate excess mixing somewhat stronger than that corresponding to the convective overshoot models by Schaller et al. Beat Cepheids can be used similarly to test main-sequence mixing in stellar interiors. The period ratios for beat Cepheids depend on luminosity, heavy element …