Revealing the pulsational properties of the V777 Her star KUV 05134+2605 by its long-term monitoring

TL;DR

This study conducts a detailed long-term asteroseismic analysis of the pulsating white dwarf KUV 05134+2605, revealing its pulsation modes, rotation period, and stellar mass, and establishing it as the most massive V777 Her star known.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive asteroseismic characterization of KUV 05134+2605, including mode identification, rotation period, and mass, using extended observational data and evolutionary models.

Findings

Identified 22 pulsation frequencies forming 12 groups.

Derived a stellar rotation period of approximately 0.6 days.

Estimated the stellar mass to be around 0.84-0.85 solar masses.

Abstract

Context: KUV 05134+2605 is one of the 21 pulsating DB white dwarfs (V777 Her or DBV variables) known so far. The detailed investigation of the short-period and low-amplitude pulsations of these relatively faint targets requires considerable observational efforts from the ground, long-term single-site or multisite observations. The observed amplitudes of excited modes undergo short-term variations in many cases, which makes the determination of pulsation modes difficult. Methods: We re-analysed the data already published, and collected new measurements. We compared the frequency content of the different datasets from the different epochs and performed various tests to check the reliability of the frequency determinations. The mean period spacings were investigated with linear fits to the observed periods, Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Inverse Variance significance tests, and Fourier analysis of different period sets, including a Monte Carlo test simulating the effect of alias ambiguities. We employed fully evolutionary DB white dwarf models for the asteroseismic investigations. Results: We identified 22 frequencies between 1280 and 2530 microHz. These form 12 groups, which suggests at least 12 possible frequencies for the asteroseismic investigations. Thanks to the extended observations, KUV 05134+2605 joined the group of rich white dwarf pulsators. We identified one triplet and at least one doublet with a ~9 microHz frequency separation, from which we derived a stellar rotation period of 0.6 d. We determined the mean period spacings of ~31 and ~18 s for the modes we propose as dipole and quadrupole, respectively. We found an excellent agreement between the stellar mass derived from the l=1 period spacing and the period-to-period fits, all providing M_* = 0.84-0.85 M_Sun solutions. Our study suggests that KUV 05134+2605 is the most massive amongst the known V777 Her stars.