Search

GD 133 is a DAZ white dwarf with an atmosphere polluted by heavy elements accreted from a debris disk, which is formed by the disruption of rocky planetesimals with orbits bringing them at the white dwarf tidal radius. To reach such orbits implies the potential presence of a perturbing planet. GD 133 is a ZZ Ceti pulsator close to the blue edge of the instability strip. The presence of a planet could be revealed by the periodical variation of the observed pulsation periods induced by the orbital motion of the white dwarf around the barycenter of the system. We started a multi-site photometric follow-up aimed at detecting the signature of this potential planet. As a preliminary result of this work in progress, we give the parameters of the GD 133 best-fit model derived from asteroseismology.

The Kepler spacecraft provides new opportinuties to observe long term frequency and amplitude modulations of oscillation modes in pulsating stars. We analyzed more than three years of uninterrupted data obtained with this instrument on the hot B subdwarf (sdB) star KIC 10139564 and found clear signatures of nonlinear resonant mode coupling affecting several multiplets. The observed periodic frequency and amplitude modulations may allow for new asteroseismic diagnostics, providing in particular ways to measure linear growth rates of pulsation modes in hot subdwarf stars for the first time.

Nonlinear mode interactions are difficult to observe from ground-based telescopes as the typical periods of the modulations induced by those nonlinear phenomena are on timescales of weeks, months, even years. The launch of space telescopes, e.g., Kepler , has tremendously changed the situation and shredded new light on this research field. We present results from Kepler photometry showing evidence that nonlinear interactions between modes occur in the two compact pulsators KIC 8626021, a DB white dwarf, and KIC 10139564, a short period hot B subdwarf. KIC 8626021 and KIC 10139564 had been monitored by Kepler in short-cadence for nearly two years and more than three years without interruption, respectively. By analyzing these high-quality photometric data, we found that the modes within the triplets induced by rotation clearly reveal different behaviors: their frequencies and amplitudes may exhibit either periodic or irregular modulations, or remain constant. These various behaviors of the amplitude and of the frequency modulations of the oscillation modes observed in these two stars are in good agreement with those predicted within the amplitude equation formalism in the case of the nonlinear resonant mode coupling mechanism.