Empirical Absolute Magnitudes, Luminosities and Effective Temperatures of SPB Variables and the Problem of Variability Classification of Monoperiodic Stars

We derive semi-empirical log L/Lsolar for 27 stars classified as SPB on the basis of Hipparcos photometry and we plot these stars on the log Teff - log L/Lsolar diagram. We confirm pulsations of HIP 63210 and HIP 108348 and show that luminosities and masses derived from photometry are of limited use for asteroseismology. For HIP 69174 and 77227, two SB2 systems with an SPB primary, we compute the age of the systems, the orbital inclination - i, the large semi-axis - a, and the masses, radii, log Teff, log g and log L/Lsolar of the components. We discover five new multiperiodic stars classified in the literature as SPB, namely, HIP 5161, 20963, 26243, 26464 and 44996. One of these stars, HIP 26243, shows periods on the time-scales of days and hours. Finally, we discuss classification of monoperiodic SPBs and show that photometry combined with evolutionary models can be helpful in preselecting tentative pulsators.