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Paper: High Precision Observations of Small Amplitude Radial Velocity Variations in Red Giants
Volume: 135, A Half Century of Stellar Pulsation Interpretations: a Tribute to Arthur N. Cox
Page: 213
Authors: Cummings, I. N.; Hearnshaw, J. B.; Kilmartin, P. M.; Gilmore, A. C.
Abstract: The fibre fed echelle spectrograph with CCD detector has been used with the 1-m McLellan telescope at Mount John University Observatory to survey 31 southern giants of spectral type K or M. The resulting radial velocities have a precision of 0.05 km/s and significant radial velocities variations were found. While orbital motion, rotation, star spots and even time dependent macroturbulence in the star's photosphere can all cause radial velocity variations, radial pulsation is believed to be the most likely cause for most of these variations. To help determine the cause of these variations 13 of the stars have been observed together with broad band photometry. The results of these observations will be presented. The stars for which it seems likely that the radial velocity variations are due to a pulsation mechanism will have their observed timescales compared to the periods predicted by linear non-adiabatic pulsation analysis.
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