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A Historical Sketch of the Beat Cepheid Studies

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Stellar Pulsation — Nonlinear Studies

Part of the book series: Astrophysics and Space Science Library ((ASSL,volume 257))

Abstract

Studies of the beat Cepheids in the beginning of the 1970’s accentuated the mass discrepancy problems of the classical Cepheids. Earlier studies of the secondary bumps defining the Hertzsprung progression in Cepheid light curves and of Cepheids in open clusters with known distances gave two types of pulsation masses about 40% smaller than the estimated evolution masses. In contrast, the estimated beat masses were a factor of 2–3 smaller than the evolution masses. These discrepancies — marking a very worrying and profound lack of theoretical understanding of the classical Cepheids so important for the distance scale in the Universe — persisted for about 20 years. During that period of time several unsuccessful attempts to solve or alleviate the problem were reported in the literature. Around 1990 all mass discrepancy problems were solved in a very satisfactory way by the drastic change of astrophysical opacities, which gave an important revision of theoretical stellar models. We here describe the role of beat Cepheids in this course of events, and give a few comments on subsequent developments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Niels Bohr Institute for Astronomy, Physics, and Geophysics, Copenhagen University Astronomical Observatory, Juliane Maries Vej 30, DK 2100, Copenhagen Ø, Denmark

    Jørgen Otzen Petersen

  2. Astronomical Institute, Tohoku University, Aoba, Sendai, 980-8578, Japan

    Mine Takeuti

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  1. Jørgen Otzen Petersen
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  1. Tohoku University, Japan

    Mine Takeuti

  2. Harvard University, USA

    Dimitar D. Sasselov

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Petersen, J.O., Takeuti, M. (2001). A Historical Sketch of the Beat Cepheid Studies. In: Takeuti, M., Sasselov, D.D. (eds) Stellar Pulsation — Nonlinear Studies. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 257. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9698-5_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9698-5_1

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