Towards a systematic spectroscopic characterization of pre-main sequence instability strip. Search for pulsations in three Herbig stars: V1247 Ori, HD35929 and HD 190073

The origin of the strong activity and winds exhibited by Herbig Ae/Be stars is a still open question with regard to current young stellar evolutionary theory. On the supposition that this origin could be internal, as growing evidences tend to indicate, probing Herbig stars interiors by means of the asteroseisomoly tool is therefore of great importance. The early-stage evolutionary tracks of the Herbig Ae stars cross the theoretical pre-main sequence (PMS) instability strip, that has to be spectroscopically characterized and whose boundaries and location, roughly in the same area of the HR diagram as the δ Scuti variables, should continue to be constrained by observations. In this context, it is necessary to extend the sample of studied pulsating Herbig Ae stars observed in high-resolution spectroscopy. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the systematic spectroscopic investigation of the PMS instability strip. We choose as targets the three Herbig stars V1247 Ori, HD35929 and HD190073. Our data were collected during three nights from 10 to 12 November 2008 with the HARPS spectrograph. V1247 Ori and HD35929 are known pulsating herbig stars, both having one photometrically detected frequency with timescale typical of δ Scuti pulsations. Till now, no search for stellar pulsations in HD190073 has been published. In this article, we search for stellar pulsations, and especially very faint signatures of non-radial pulsations, in
the equivalent photospheric (LSD) profile time-series of our targets. Temporal variations of the LSD-profile central depth, if present, was studied with the time-series analysis tools Period04 and SigSpec. In case of oscillation detection, we then performed a 2D Fourier analysis of the entire profile in order to identify the modes corresponding to the dominant frequencies. The pulsating nature of V1247 Ori and HD35929 was confirmed by our results. V1247 Ori: frequencies of 18.99±1d−1 and 11.26±1d−1 were detected, corresponding to modes of degree ℓ = 3 to 5 and ℓ = 0 or 1, respectively. HD35929: a frequency of 5.75±1.28d−1 was detected, corresponding to a mode of degre ℓ = 6 or 7. No pulsation signatures were found in the LSD-profile time-series of HD190073.