Pulsating B and Be stars in the Magellanic Clouds

Abstract

Stellar pulsations in main-sequence B-type stars are driven by the $\kappa$-mechanism due to the Fe-group opacity bump. The current models do not predict the presence of instability strips in the B spectral domain at very low metallicities. As the metallicity of the Magellanic Clouds (MC) has been measured to be around $Z=0.002$ for the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and $Z=0.007$ for the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), they constitute a very suitable objects to test these predictions. The aim of this work is to investigate the existence of B-type pulsators at low metallicities, searching for short-term periodic variability in a large sample of B and Be stars from the MC with accurately determined fundamental astrophysical parameters.

4 pages, 1 figure, contributed poster to the VIII Reunión Científica de la SEA 2008, Santander 7-11 July 2008 (v2 corrects a misprint in title)