Presentation #204.19 in the session Pulsating Variable Stars — iPoster Session.
Delta Scuti variable stars have spectral types of A0 to F5. Like many other variable stars, they are found in the instability strip of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. They differ from most variable stars in that they can be on the main sequence (MS) or just evolved onto the red-giant branch (RGB). They pulsate in radial and non-radial modes and range in amplitude from 0.01 to above 0.3 magnitudes. In addition to pulsation, atmospheric processes such as convection, rotation, and magnetic fields can also exist within these stars. Motion, temperature, luminosity class and other characteristics can be determined by analyzing the spectra of stars. For variable stars, the spectra is key to understanding the processes behind pulsation.
Delta Scuti type stars have been studied extensively in the optical wavelengths (where the largest changes in brightness take place), but little work has been done spectroscopically in the near infrared. We have obtained spectra in JHK bands for several delta Scuti stars using the spectrograph, TripleSpec, on the ARC 3.5m telescope at Apache Point Observatory, and we present the results of processing the data.