Evolution, pulsation and period change in the Cepheid SZ Tau

TL;DR

This paper models radial pulsations in Population I Cepheids, specifically SZ Tau, using radiation hydrodynamics and stellar evolution, to understand their period changes and evolutionary stage.

Contribution

It provides detailed nonlinear pulsation models for SZ Tau considering different convective overshoot parameters, linking pulsation characteristics with stellar evolution.

Findings

SZ Tau pulsates in the first overtone near mode boundary.

Models match observed period and evolutionary stage for specific overshoot parameters.

Predicted period change rate is approximately -0.4 seconds per year.

Abstract

The study is devoted to radial pulsations in Population I Cepheids with masses from 5.4 to 6 Msun. Solution of the equations of radiation hydrodynamics and turbulent convection for nonlinear stellar pulsations was obtained with initial conditions as the core helium burning models of computed evolutionary sequences. For each value of the initial mass we considered stellar evolution from the zero age main sequence to central helium exhaustion with three values of the convective overshoot parameter: aov=0.1, 0.15 and 0.2. Models for the Cepheid SZ Tau with pulsation period 3.149 day can be constructed only for aov=0.1 and aov=0.15. The star is at the evolutionary stage of the second crossing of the instability strip and pulsates in the first overtone just near the boundary between the fundamental mode and the first overtone. The mass, radius and age of the star are in the ranges 5.46 <= M/Msun <= 5.75, 41.5 <= R/Rsun <= 42.3 and 6.9e7 yr <= t <= 8.0e7 yr, respectively. Predicted period change rates are of -0.4 s/yr.