Short-term Variability of Evolved Massive Stars with TESS. II. A New Class of Cool, Pulsating Supergiants
Trevor Z. Dorn-Wallenstein, Emily M. Levesque, Kathryn F. Neugent, James R. A. Davenport, Brett M. Morris, Keyan Gootkin
Abstract
Abstract Massive stars briefly pass through the yellow supergiant (YSG) phase as they evolve redward across the H-R diagram and expand into red supergiants (RSGs). Higher-mass stars pass through the YSG phase again as they evolve blueward after experiencing significant RSG mass loss. These post-RSG objects offer us a tantalizing glimpse into which stars end their lives as RSGs and why. One telltale sign of a post-RSG object may be an instability to pulsations, depending on the star’s interior structure. Here we report the discovery of five YSGs with pulsation periods faster than 1 day, found in a sample of 76 cool supergiants observed by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite at a two-minute cadence. These pulsating YSGs are concentrated in an H-R diagram region not previously associated with pulsations; we conclude that this is a genuine new class of pulsating star, fast yellow pulsating supergiants (FYPSs). For each FYPS, we extract frequencies via iterative prewhitening and conduct a time-frequency analysis. One FYPS has an extracted frequency that is split into a triplet, and the amplitude of that peak is modulated on the same timescale as the frequency spacing of the triplet; neither rotation nor binary effects are likely culprits. We discuss the evolutionary status of FYPS and conclude that they are candidate post-RSGs. All stars in our sample also show the same stochastic low-frequency variability found in hot OB stars and attributed to internal gravity waves. Finally, we find four α Cygni variables in our sample, of which three are newly discovered.