The Asteroseismological Richness of RCB and dLHdC Stars

Abstract

RCB stars are $L\approx10^4\,L_{\odot}$ solar-mass objects that can exhibit large periods of extinction from dust ejection episodes. Many exhibit semiregular pulsations in the range of $30-50$ days with semi-amplitudes of $0.05-0.3$ magnitude. Space-based photometry has discovered that solar-like oscillations are ubiquitous in hydrogen-dominated stars that have substantial outer convective envelopes, so we explore the hypothesis that the pulsations in RCB stars and the closely related dustless hydrogen-deficient carbon (dLHdC) stars, which have large convective outer envelopes of nearly pure helium, have a similar origin. Through stellar modeling and pulsation calculations, we find that the observed periods and amplitudes of these pulsations follows the well-measured phenomenology of their H-rich brethren. In particular, we show that the observed modes are likely of angular orders $l=0,1$ and $2$ and predominantly of an acoustic nature (i.e. $p$-modes with low radial order). The modes with largest amplitude are near the acoustic cut-off frequency appropriately rescaled to the helium-dominated envelope, and the observed amplitudes are consistent with that seen in high luminosity ($L>10^3\,L_{\odot}$) H-rich giants. We also find that for $T_{\mathrm{eff}}\gtrsim5400\,\mathrm{K}$, an HdC stellar model exhibits a radiative layer between two outer convective zones, creating a $g$-mode cavity that supports much longer period ($\approx 100$ days) oscillations. Our initial work was focused primarily on the adiabatic modes, but we expect that subsequent space-based observations of these targets (e.g. with TESS or Plato) are likely to lead to a larger set of detected frequencies that would allow for a deeper study of the interiors of these rare stars.