On the incidence of magnetic fields in slowly-pulsating B, $\beta$ Cephei and B-type emission line stars


J. Silvester$^{1,2}$, C. Neiner$^{3}$, H.F. Henrichs$^{4}$, G.A. Wade$^{2}$, V. Petit$^{5}$, E. Alecian$^{2}$, A.-L. Huat$^{6}$, C. Martayan$^{6,7}$, J. Power$^{2}$, O. Thizy$^{8}$

$^{1}$Department of Physics, Engineering Physics \& Astronomy, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, K7L 3N6\\
$^{2}$Department of Physics, Royal Military College of Canada, P.O. Box 17000, Station `Forces', Kingston, Ontario, Canada, K7K 7B4\\
$^{3}$GEPI, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, place Jules Janssen, 92190 Meudon Cedex, France\\
$^{4}$Astronomical Institute "Anton Pannekoek", University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098 XH Amsterdam, Netherlands\\
$^{5}$D\'epartement de physique, g\'enie physique et optique, CRAQ, Universit\'{e} Laval, Qu\'{e}bec, Canada, G1K 7P4 \\
$^{6}$GEPI, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, Universit\'e Paris Diderot; 5 place Jules Janssen, 92190 Meudon, France \\
$^{7}$Royal Observatory of Belgium, 3 avenue circulaire, 1180 Brussels, Belgium \\
$^{8}$Shelyak Instruments, Les Roussets, 38420 Revel, France

We have obtained 40 high-resolution circular spectropolarimetric measurements of 12 slowly-pulsating B (SPB) stars, 8 Beta Cephei stars and two Be stars with the ESPaDOnS and NARVAL spectropolarimeters. The aim of these observations is to evaluate recent claims of a high incidence of magnetic field detections in stars of these types obtained using low-resolution spectropolarimetry by Hubrig (2006), Hubrig (2007) and Hubrig (2009). The precision achieved is generally comparable to or superior to that obtained by Hubrig et al., although our new observations are distinguished by their resolution of metallic and He line profiles, and their consequent sensitivity to magnetic fields of zero net longitudinal component. In the SPB stars we confirm the detection of magnetic field in one star (16 Peg), but find no evidence of the presence of fields in the remaining 11. In the Beta Cep stars, we detect a field in $\xi^{1}$~CMa, but not in any of the remaining 7 stars. Finally, neither of the two B-type emission line stars shows any evidence of magnetic field. Based on our results, we conclude that fields are not common in SPB, Beta Cep and B-type emission line stars, consistent with the general rarity of fields in the broader population of main sequence B-type stars.

Reference: Accepted - MNRAS
Status: Manuscript has been accepted

Weblink: http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/0906.1575

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Email: james.silvester@rmc.ca