The δ Scuti instability strip and period-luminosity relation as seen by TESS and Gaia DR3
Abstract
We present an asteroseismic survey of 1,526,218 A- and F-type stars in and around the δ Scuti instability strip using TESS 10-minute cadence data, which resolve the full δ Scuti pulsation spectra across nearly the entire sky. We derive homogeneous stellar parameters from Gaia DR3 parallaxes and archival photometry, with temperatures that agree with interferometry to within ~300 K. A Positive--Unlabelled classifier identifies 156,706 δ Scuti pulsators, which on average rotate significantly faster than non-variable A-type stars. Within the instability strip in the Teff--log L plane, the pulsator fraction peaks at 30% over the full sample and rises to 80% in the brightest magnitude bins. Detection sensitivity therefore accounts for much, but not all, of the apparent impurity of the strip. Our period--luminosity relation agrees with previous determinations, and we recast it as a scale-invariant period--density relation that connects directly to the pulsation constant. We find that the secondary ridge in these relations is probably a combination of several overtone modes. The δ Scuti stars closest to the fundamental ridge have systematically lower rotational velocities and occupy a distinct region of the instability strip. Finally, a cross-match with a Gaia catalog of open clusters reveals a correlation between the mean pulsation frequency of δ Scuti stars and cluster age, suggesting a new ensemble asteroseismic age indicator for young stellar populations.
Related
- Population synthesis of delta Scuti stars: the instability strip, period-luminosity relation, and large-separation distribution
- Axions and the RR Lyrae Period-Luminosity Relation
- The independence of the mid-infrared RR Lyrae Period-Luminosity relation from metallicity from a study of three globular clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud
- Theoretical RR Lyrae instability strip from MESA-RSP pulsation models and updated BaSTI evolutionary tracks
- Revisiting candidates for non-pulsating stars located in the Cepheid instability strip in the Large Magellanic Cloud
BibTeX
@misc{hey2026scuti,
title = {{The $δ$ Scuti instability strip and period-luminosity relation as seen by TESS and Gaia DR3}},
author = {Daniel Hey and Simon Murphy and Timothy R. Bedding and Anuj Gautam and Daniel Huber and Yaguang Li and Ian Berry and Hyde Kenney and Prasad Mani and Tom Love and Mykyta Kliapets},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.40656},
eprint = {2610.40656},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.40656},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - The δ Scuti instability strip and period-luminosity relation as seen by TESS and Gaia DR3
AU - Daniel Hey
AU - Simon Murphy
AU - Timothy R. Bedding
AU - Anuj Gautam
AU - Daniel Huber
AU - Yaguang Li
AU - Ian Berry
AU - Hyde Kenney
AU - Prasad Mani
AU - Tom Love
AU - Mykyta Kliapets
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/29
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.40656
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.40656
AB - We present an asteroseismic survey of 1,526,218 A- and F-type stars in and around the δ Scuti instability strip using TESS 10-minute cadence data, which resolve the full δ Scuti pulsation spectra across nearly the entire sky. We derive homogeneous stellar parameters from Gaia DR3 parallaxes and archival photometry, with temperatures that agree with interferometry to within ~300 K. A Positive--Unlabelled classifier identifies 156,706 δ Scuti pulsators, which on average rotate significantly faster than non-variable A-type stars. Within the instability strip in the T_eff--log L plane, the pulsator fraction peaks at 30% over the full sample and rises to 80% in the brightest magnitude bins. Detection sensitivity therefore accounts for much, but not all, of the apparent impurity of the strip. Our period--luminosity relation agrees with previous determinations, and we recast it as a scale-invariant period--density relation that connects directly to the pulsation constant. We find that the secondary ridge in these relations is probably a combination of several overtone modes. The δ Scuti stars closest to the fundamental ridge have systematically lower rotational velocities and occupy a distinct region of the instability strip. Finally, a cross-match with a Gaia catalog of open clusters reveals a correlation between the mean pulsation frequency of δ Scuti stars and cluster age, suggesting a new ensemble asteroseismic age indicator for young stellar populations.
ER -