Wesselink's Method and Shock Waves in RR Lyrae.
Abstract
Wesselink's method for obtaining the luminosity of a pulsating star from photometric and spectroscopic observations is found to be unsuccessful if the total expansion is only of the order of magnitude of the atmospheric scale height or less. In RR Lyrae, whose expansion is relatively large, further difliculties are encountered which are attributed to the presence during rising light of radiation from the hot emitting layer behind an outward-moving shock front. The shock-wave model successfully accounts for the observed ultraviolet excess, the hydrogen emission lines, the double absorption lines, the difficulty with Wesselink's method, and the hump at mid-rising light.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- November 1959
- DOI:
- 10.1086/146775
- Bibcode:
- 1959ApJ...130..824A