Our recent search for the presence of a magnetic field in the bright early A-type supergiant HD 92207 using FOcal reducer low dispersion spectrograph (FORS) 2 in spectropolarimetric mode indicated the presence of a longitudinal magnetic field of the order of a few hundred gauss. Assuming the ideal case of a non-variable star, this discovery has recently been questioned in one work trying to demonstrate the importance of non-photon noise in FORS 2 observations. The assumption of non-variability of HD 92207 can, however, not be held since substantial profile variations of diverse lines on a time-scale of minutes or maybe even a fraction of a minute are detected in FORS 2 spectra. The presence of short-term spectral variability in blue supergiants, which are considered as Type II supernova progenitors, has not been a subject of systematic studies before and is critical for the current theoretical understanding of their physics. Given the detected short-term variability, the question of the presence of a magnetic
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1779-1785
Number of pages7
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume440
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2014

    Research areas

  • stars: early-type – techniques: polarimetric — stars: individual: HD 92207 – stars: atmospheres — stars: magnetic fields — stars: variables: general

ID: 7028604