Analysis of β Cephei stars observed by BRITE

E. Zocłońska and the BRITE Team

Two β Cephei stars observed by the satellite constellation BRITE were analyzed: ε Centauri (HD 118716) and ε Persei (HD 24760). Both stars are bright, main sequence, rapidly rotating massive stars and are important to study because they can finish their lives as core collapse supernovae type II. The physical properties and evolutionary status of such objects are not well known yet. In particular, the core and envelope rotation, angular speed and exact evolution phase can be studied with asteroseismic methods. The two stars were observed in the year 2014 by the BRITE satellites. Reduced photometry in the form of high-precision time-resolved lightcurves was provided. Before analyzing the data, the instrumental effects from photometry were removed. Based on the Cookbook written by Pigulski (2015) we started by decorrelating data.

Proceedings of the Polish Astronomical Society, vol. 5, 158-162 (2017)

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