GD 244: asteroseismology of a pulsator in the middle of the ZZ Ceti instability strip

Abstract

We present our preliminary results on the asteroseismological investigations of the ZZ Ceti star GD 244. We used literature values of the effective temperature and surface gravity and utilized the White Dwarf Evolution Code of Bischoff-Kim, Montgomery and Winget (2008, ApJ, 675, 1512) to build our model grid for the seismological analysis. Five observed pulsational modes published up to now were used to find acceptable model solutions. We found that the best model fits have masses between 0.61 and 0.74 M_solar and constitute two groups with hydrogen layer masses of either ~10^{-5} or 10^{-6} M_solar. Based on a statistical analysis of a larger sample of possible model solutions, we assume that the mass of the star is below ~0.68 M_solar and the oxygen content in the centre is less than 60 percent.

4 pages, 1 figure, appeared in AIP Conference Proceedings vol. 1273, 2010 (eds.: K. Werner, T. Rauch, 17th European White Dwarf Workshop, Tubingen, Germany)