Chaos in the Music of the Spheres

Details Chaos in the Music of the Spheres Chaos in the Music of the Spheres

2001-06-19

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0106329v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Proceedings, Experimental Chaos 2001, The 6th Experimental Chaos Conference, Potsdam, Germany July 22-26, 2001. (13 pages, 7 f

Scientific paper

10.1063/1.1487521

The light curves (time series of the radiated energy) of most large amplitude, pulsating stars such as the well known Cepheid stars are regular. However, a smaller group of variable stars that are located next to them in the Hertzsprung- Russell diagram undergoes irregular light variations and exhibits irregular radial velocities as well. The mechanism behind this irregular behavior was a long standing mystery. A flow reconstruction technique based on the observed lightcurves of six separate stars shows that their underlying dynamics is chaotic and low dimensional (d=4). Furthermore, we present evidence that the physical mechanism behind the behavior is the nonlinear interaction of just two pulsation eigenmodes. In a generalized Shil'nikov scenario, the pulsation energy alternates continuously, but irregularly between a lower frequency mode that is linearly unstable and thus growing, and a stable overtone that gets entrained through a low order resonance (2:1), but that wants to decay. The flow reconstruction from the stellar light curve thus yields interesting physical insight into the pulsation mechanism.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Chaos in the Music of the Spheres does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Chaos in the Music of the Spheres, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Chaos in the Music of the Spheres will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-645469