Non-Pulsating Stars and the Population I and II Instability Strips

Abstract

With specially computed detailed tables of equations of state and opacities, the instability strips for δ Scuti stars and Cepheids of population I and RR Lyrae and W Virginis stars of population II have been compared using the linear pulsation theory. Uncertainties in the observed strip locations and sometimes the mode of the observed pulsations do not allow high accuracy in fixing helium contents or the variables masses. Nevertheless, if masses close to those given by evolutionary theory are used, the helium content in population II objects is likely less than Y = 0.25. A helium content of close to zero would put the theoretical blue edge of the instability strip to the red of the observed red edge, and have all the hotter stars which are in the strip as non-pulsating. For population I, Y can be more than 0.3, (more than 0.4 if half evolutionary masses are used), but if a given star has Y less than about 0.2 (full mass) or 0.25 (half mass), it can appear in the dwarf and classical Cepheid strips as non-pulsating.