Paper detail

Study of sdO models. Pulsation Analysis

We have explored the possibility of driving pulsation modes in models of sdO stars in which the effects of element diffusion, gravitational settling and radiative levitation have been neglected so that the distribution of iron-peak elements remains uniform throughout the evolution. The stability of these models was determined using a non-adiabatic oscillations code. We analysed 27 sdO models from 16 different evolutionary sequences and discovered the first ever sdO models capable of driving high-radial order g-modes. In one model, the driving is by a classical kappa-mechanism due to the opacity bump from iron-peak elements at temperature ~200,000 K. In a second model, the driving result from the combined action of kappa-mechanisms operating in three distinct regions of the star: (i) a carbon-oxygen partial ionization zone at temperature ~2 10^6 K, (ii) a deeper region at temperature ~2 10^7 K, which we attribute to ionization of argon, and (iii) at the transition from radiative to conductive opacity in the core of the star.