The Konkoly Blazhko Survey: Is light-curve modulation a common property of RRab stars?

TL;DR

The Konkoly Blazhko Survey found that nearly half of RRab stars exhibit light-curve modulation, mostly small-amplitude, indicating the Blazhko phenomenon is more common than previously thought, with implications for understanding stellar pulsations.

Contribution

This study provides the first large-scale, systematic measurement of the Blazhko modulation incidence rate among RRab stars, revealing a higher prevalence due to detection of small-amplitude modulations.

Findings

47% of RRab stars show light-curve modulation.

Small-amplitude modulations are common and often missed in earlier surveys.

The [Fe/H](P,phi_{31}) relation remains valid for small-modulation stars and well-sampled large-modulation stars.

Abstract

A systematic survey to establish the true incidence rate of the Blazhko modulation among short-period, fundamental-mode, Galactic field RR Lyrae stars has been accomplished. The Konkoly Blazhko Survey (KBS) was initiated in 2004. Since then more than 750 nights of observation have been devoted to this project. A sample of 30 RRab stars was extensively observed, and light-curve modulation was detected in 14 cases. The 47% occurrence rate of the modulation is much larger than any previous estimate. The significant increase of the detected incidence rate is mostly due to the discovery of small-amplitude modulation. Half of the Blazhko variables in our sample show modulation with so small amplitude that definitely have been missed in the previous surveys. We have found that the modulation can be very unstable in some cases, e.g. RY Com showed regular modulation only during one part of the observations while during two seasons it had stable light curve with abrupt, small changes in the pulsation amplitude. This type of light-curve variability is also hard to detect in other Survey's data. The larger frequency of the light-curve modulation of RRab stars makes it even more important to find the still lacking explanation of the Blazhko phenomenon. The validity of the [Fe/H](P,phi_{31}) relation using the mean light curves of Blazhko variables is checked in our sample. We have found that the formula gives accurate result for small-modulation-amplitude Blazhko stars, and this is also the case for large-modulation-amplitude stars if the light curve has complete phase coverage. However, if the data of large-modulation-amplitude Blazhko stars are not extended enough (e.g. < 500 data points from < 15 nights), the formula may give false result due to the distorted shape of the mean light curve used.