Multiwavelength Studies of β Cephei Stars

Abstract

As first pointed out by Moskalik and Dziembowski (1992) all β Cephei stars lie within the domain of H–R diagram where к–mechanism effectively drives pulsations in the stellar layers with T≈ 2×10⁵ K. For most of these objects a chemical composition described by X = 0.70 and Z = 0.02 is sufficient to account for the pulsations, cf. Dziembowski and Pamyatnykh (1993). Recently, Cugier, Dziembowski and Pamyatnykh (1993) have investigated how the present knowledge about nonadiabatic observables of β Cephei stars affects methods of identification of the spherical harmonic degree, l. They found that good photometric and radial velocity data should result in unambiguous identification of l. Cugier, Dziembowski and Pamyatnykh also concluded that nonadiabatic observables can be used to obtain mean stellar parameters of pulsating stars.