The Light Curves of Double-Mode Cepheids: The CO Aur Case
In two recent papers (Pardo & Poretti 1997; Poretti & Pardo 1997) we analyzed all the available photometry of galactic double-mode Cepheids (DMCs) with the aim of detecting in each case the importance of the harmonics and of the cross coupling terms. We found that no a priori fit can be reliably applied to the measurements of a DMC, but a careful frequency analysis must be done to evaluate the importance of each term. As a further application of this technique, we obtained very precise indications about the properties of the Fourier parameters. When discussing the generalized phase differences Gi,j we demonstrated that plotting them as a function of the order |i|+|j|, there are well-defined regions where they are confined: the second order terms have π < Gi,j < 3π/2; the third order terms have π/2 < Gi,j < π; the fourth order terms cluster around 2π.