Revised instability domains of SPB and beta Cephei stars

TL;DR

This paper revises the instability domains of SPB and beta Cephei stars by analyzing the effects of different opacity tables and metallicities on stellar pulsation models, extending previous work to higher masses and modes.

Contribution

It provides updated instability domains considering various opacity tables, metallicities, and higher pulsation modes, improving understanding of stellar pulsation sensitivities.

Findings

Instability domains vary significantly with opacity choices.

Higher mass models show different pulsation stability regions.

Metallicity influences the extent of instability domains.

Abstract

The excitation of pulsation modes in beta Cephei and Slowly Pulsating B stars is known to be very sensitive to opacity changes in the stellar interior where T~2 10^5 K. In this region differences in opacity up to ~50% can be induced by the choice between OPAL and OP opacity tables, and between two different metal mixtures (Grevesse and Noels 1993 and Asplund et al. 2005). We have extended the non-adiabatic computations presented in Miglio et al. (2007) towards models of higher mass and pulsation modes of degree l=3, and we present here the instability domains in the HR- and log(P)-log(Teff) diagrams resulting from different choices of opacity tables, and for three different metallicities.