Another Search for Maia Variable Stars

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
We have used the Hipparcos epoch photometry database, and autocorrelation analysis, to search for the elusive Maia variables—short‐period B7–A3 near–main‐sequence pulsating variable stars. Of several hundred stars considered, and several dozen stars studied in detail, only a handful are possible variables: three are possible shallow eclipsing variables; three have possible periods in the range 0.25–0.5 day, but their amplitudes are so low that they are probably nonvariable. The most promising are HD 29573, with a period of 1.6 days (but possibly a rotating variable), and γ CrB, with a period of 0.9 day—a period also found spectroscopically by Lehmann and coworkers. Sirius shows variations which are probably instrumental. Two previously suspected Maia stars—Maia and γ UMi—are photometrically constant. The Maia variables—if they exist—are very rare and very elusive.

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit: