Chaotic dynamics in the pulsation of DF Cygni, as observed by Kepler

Abstract

Pulsations of RV Tauri-type variable stars can be governed by chaotic dynamics. However, observational evidence for this happening is usually hard to come by. Here we use the continuous, 4-yr-long observations of the Kepler space telescope to search for the signs of chaos in the RVb-type pulsating supergiant, DF Cygni.We use the Global Flow Reconstruction method to estimate the quantitative properties of the dynamics driving the pulsations of the star. The secondary, long-term light variation, i.e. the RVb phenomenon, was removed in the analysis with the empirical mode decomposition method. Our analysis revealed that the pulsation of DF Cyg could be described as a chaotic signal with a Lyapunov dimension of ~2.8. DF Cyg is only the third RV Tau star, and the first of the RVb subtype, where the non-linear analysis indicates that low-dimensional chaos may explain the peculiarities of the pulsation.