Investigating light curve modulation via kernel smoothing. II. New additional modes in single-mode OGLE classical Cepheids

TL;DR

This study employs kernel regression to better detect secondary pulsation modes in classical Cepheids, revealing more frequent and diverse modes than previously known, with differences observed between the Magellanic Clouds.

Contribution

It introduces a kernel smoothing method for improved pre-whitening, enabling detection of additional non-radial modes in single-mode Cepheids, expanding understanding of their pulsation complexity.

Findings

Secondary modes are more common in first overtone Cepheids.

Mode composition varies between the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.

Discovery of two new candidate non-radial modes at specific period ratios.

Abstract

Detailed knowledge of the variability of classical Cepheids, in particular their modulations and mode composition, provides crucial insight into stellar structure and pulsation. However, tiny modulations of the dominant radial-mode pulsation were recently found to be very frequent, possibly ubiquitous in Cepheids, which makes secondary modes difficult to detect and analyse, since these modulations can easily mask the potentially weak secondary modes. The aim of this study is to re-investigate the secondary mode content in the sample of OGLE-III and -IV single-mode classical Cepheids using kernel regression with adaptive kernel width for pre-whitening, instead of using a constant-parameter model. This leads to a more precise removal of the modulated dominant pulsation, and enables a more complete survey of secondary modes with frequencies outside a narrow range around the primary. Our analysis reveals that significant secondary modes occur more frequently among first overtone Cepheids than previously thought. The mode composition appears significantly different in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, suggesting a possible dependence on chemical composition. In addition to the formerly identified non-radial mode at $P_2 \approx 0.6\ldots 0.65 P_1$ (0.62-mode), and a cluster of modes with near-primary frequency, we find two more candidate non-radial modes. One is a numerous group of secondary modes with $P_2 \approx 1.25 P_1$, which may represent the fundamental of the 0.62-mode, supposed to be the first harmonic of an $l \in \{7,8, 9\}$ non-radial mode. The other new mode is at $P_2 \approx 1.46 P_1$, possibly analogous to a similar, rare mode recently discovered among first overtone RR Lyrae stars.