Long-Term VRI Photometry of Small-Amplitude Red Variables. I. Light Curves and Periods
We report up to 5000 days of VRI photometry, from a robotic photometrictelescope, of 34 pulsating red giants, namely, TV Psc, EG And, Z Psc, RZAnd, 4 Ori, RX Lep, UW Lyn, η Gem, μ Gem, ψ1 Aur,V523 Mon, V614 Mon, HD 52690, Y Lyn, BC CMi, X Cnc, UX Lyn, RS Cnc, VYUMa, ST UMa, TU CVn, FS Com, SW Vir, 30 Her, α1 Her,V642 Her, R Lyr, V450 Aql, V1293 Aql, δ Sge, EU Del, V1070 Cyg, WCyg, and μ Cep, as well as a few variable comparison stars. V, R, andI variations are generally in phase. The length and density of the dataenable us to look for variations on timescales ranging from days toyears. We use both power-spectrum (Fourier) analysis and autocorrelationanalysis, as well as light-curve analysis; these three approaches arecomplementary. The variations range from regular to irregular, but inmost of the stars, we find a period in the range of 20-200 days, whichis probably due to low-order radial pulsation. In many of the stars, wealso find a period which is an order of magnitude longer. It may be dueto rotation, or it may be due to a new kind of convectively inducedoscillatory thermal mode, recently proposed by P. Wood.
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