On the Cepheid Metallicity Dichotomy
arXiv:0802.4166 · doi:10.1051/eas/0938009
Abstract
With the aid of stellar atmosphere models, we derive iron abundances [Fe/H] from the OGLE B, V, I photometry on the Magellanic Cloud Cepheids. We show that in both clouds the average metallicities of the first overtone variables are lower than those of the fundamental ones (by ~0.2 and ~0.3 dex in the LMC and SMC, respectively). Consequently, there is a correlation between the overall [Fe/H] and luminosity; the lower luminosity stars tend to be also of lower metallicity. These metallicity dependencies are concordant with the ones derived for the two types of double-mode Cepheids from pulsation theory. Yet another support of this dichotomy comes from the evolution theories that require lower metallicities for blue-looping low-luminosity stars than for high-luminosity ones. We also comment on the possibility of using period-luminosity-color relations to derive more accurate metallicities.
8 pages with 3 tables and 2 figures. To appear in the Proceedings of a workshop held at IAP, Paris, July 9-11, 2008 ("Nonlinear stellar hydrodynamics and the pulsations of Cepheids", Eds.: Goupil M-J., Kollath, Z., Kervella P., Nardetto N., Publ.: EDP Sciences)
References in corpus (4)
- An abundance analysis of bright giants in the globular cluster NGC 1851
- Classical Cepheid Pulsation Models. XI. Effects of convection and chemical composition on the Period-Luminosity and Period-Wesenheit relations
- Cepheid Mass-Luminosity Relations from the Magellanic Clouds
- The Faint Cepheids of the Small Magellanic Cloud: an evolutionary selection effect?