2000A&A...363..198H

Three members of the new class of pulsating sdB stars (sdBV or EC 14026 stars) are analysed from Keck HIRES spectra using line blanketed NLTE and LTE model atmospheres. Atmospheric parameters (T_eff, logg, log(He/H)), metal abundances and rotational velocities are determined. A careful investigation of several temperature indicators, i.e. line profile fitting of Balmer and helium lines, the ionization equilibria of helium, nitrogen and silicon gave consistent results for Feige48 and KPD 2109+4401 to within a few hundred Kelvin. However, for PG1219+534 considerably higher effective temperature estimates were derived from the ionization equilibria of nitrogen (36800K) and helium (34400K) than from the Balmer line profile fitting (33200K). A systematic difference in the gravity derived from NLTE and LTE models was observed, the NLTE gravities being slightly lower, by up to 0.1dex, than the LTE results. As is typical for sdB stars, all programme stars are found to be helium deficient, with a helium abundance ranging from 1/80 solar for Feige48 to 1/3 solar for PG1219+534, probably due to diffusion. Most metals are also depleted. The abundances of C, O, Ne, Mg, Al and Si in the high gravity programme stars KPD2109+4401 and PG1219+534 are considerably lower than in the lower gravity stars Feige48 and PG1605+072 (Heber et al. 1999a) which could be explained by an equilibrium between gravitational settling and radiative levitation. Surprisingly iron is solar to within error limits in all programme stars irrespective of their gravity, confirming predictions from diffusion calculations of Charpinet et al. (1997ApJ...483L.123C). The metal lines are very sharp and allow the microturbulent velocity to be constrained to be lower than 5km/s (KPD 2109+4401, PG 1219+534). Also the projected rotational velocities have to be very low (v_rotsini<10km/s). For Feige48 the limits are even tighter (v_micro≤3km/s, v_rotsini≤5km/s).