Helium abundance effects on RR Lyrae pulsation properties

Abstract

A new set of nonlinear convective pulsation models of RR Lyrae stars has been computed varying both the metallicity and the helium content. To constrain the helium dependence of pulsation observables we adopted, for each metal content, at least three different helium abundances. We provide for the first time a homogeneous evolutionary and pulsation framework covering the entire range of cluster and field variables. The implications for the use of RR Lyrae as stellar population tracers and distance indicators are briefly discussed.