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Register a new userThe asteroseismic potential of Kepler: first results for solar-type stars
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We present preliminary asteroseismic results from Kepler on three G-type stars. The observations, made at one-minute cadence during the first 33.5d of science operations, reveal high signal-to-noise solar-like oscillation spectra in all three stars: About 20 modes of oscillation may be clearly distinguished in each star. We discuss the appearance of the oscillation spectra, use the frequencies and frequency separations to provide first results on the radii, masses and ages of the stars, and comment in the light of these results on prospects for inference on other solar-type stars that Kepler will observe.
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Asteroseismology with the Kepler space telescope is providing not only an improved characterization of exoplanets and their host stars, but also a new window on stellar structure and evolution for the large sample of solar-type stars in the field. We perform a uniform analysis of 22 of the brightest asteroseismic targets with the highest signal-to-noise ratio observed for 1 month each during the first year of the mission, and we quantify the precision and relative accuracy of asteroseismic determinations of the stellar radius, mass, and age that are possible using various methods. We present the properties of each star in the sample derived from an automated analysis of the individual oscillation frequencies and other observational constraints using the Asteroseismic Modeling Portal (AMP), and we compare them to the results of model-grid-based methods that fit the global oscillation properties. We find that fitting the individual frequencies typically yields asteroseismic radii and masses to sim1% precision, and ages to sim2.5% precision (respectively 2, 5, and 8 times better than fitting the global oscillation properties). The absolute level of agreement between the results from different approaches is also encouraging, with model-grid-based methods yielding slightly smaller estimates of the radius and mass and slightly older values for the stellar age relative to AMP, which computes a large number of dedicated models for each star. The sample of targets for which this type of analysis is possible will grow as longer data sets are obtained during the remainder of the mission.
The Kepler space telescope yielded unprecedented data for the study of solar-like oscillations in other stars. The large samples of multi-year observations posed an enormous data analysis challenge that has only recently been surmounted. Asteroseismic modeling has become more sophisticated over time, with better methods gradually developing alongside the extended observations and improved data analysis techniques. We apply the latest version of the Asteroseismic Modeling Portal (AMP) to the full-length Kepler data sets for 57 stars and the Sun, comprising planetary hosts, binaries, solar-analogs, and active stars. From an analysis of the derived stellar properties for the full sample, we identify a variation of the mixing-length parameter with atmospheric properties. We also derive a linear relation between the stellar age and a characteristic frequency separation ratio. In addition, we find that the empirical correction for surface effects suggested by Kjeldsen and coworkers is adequate for solar-type stars that are not much hotter (Teff < 6200 K) or significantly more evolved (logg > 4.2, <Delta_nu> > 80 muHz) than the Sun. Precise parallaxes from the Gaia mission and future observations from TESS and PLATO promise to improve the reliability of stellar properties derived from asteroseismology.
Recently the number of main-sequence and subgiant stars exhibiting solar-like oscillations that are resolved into individual mode frequencies has increased dramatically. While only a few such data sets were available for detailed modeling just a decade ago, the Kepler mission has produced suitable observations for hundreds of new targets. This rapid expansion in observational capacity has been accompanied by a shift in analysis and modeling strategies to yield uniform sets of derived stellar properties more quickly and easily. We use previously published asteroseismic and spectroscopic data sets to provide a uniform analysis of 42 solar-type Kepler targets from the Asteroseismic Modeling Portal (AMP). We find that fitting the individual frequencies typically doubles the precision of the asteroseismic radius, mass and age compared to grid-based modeling of the global oscillation properties, and improves the precision of the radius and mass by about a factor of three over empirical scaling relations. We demonstrate the utility of the derived properties with several applications.
Stellar magnetic activity decays over the main-sequence life of cool stars due to the stellar spin-down driven by magnetic braking. The evolution of chromospheric emission is well-studied for younger stars, but difficulties in determining the ages of older cool stars on the main sequence have complicated such studies for older stars in the past. Here we report on chromospheric Ca II H and K line measurements for 26 main-sequence cool stars with asteroseismic ages older than a gigayear and spectral types F and G. We find that for the G stars and the cooler F-type stars which still have convective envelopes the magnetic activity continues to decrease at stellar ages above one gigayear. Our magnetic activity measurements do not show evidence for a stalling of the magnetic braking mechanism, which has been reported for stellar rotation versus age for G and F type stars. We also find that the measured RHK indicator value for the cool F stars in our sample is lower than predicted by common age-activity relations that are mainly calibrated on data from young stellar clusters. We conclude that, within individual spectral type bins, chromospheric magnetic activity correlates well with stellar age even for old stars.
The influence of rotational mixing on the evolution and asteroseismic properties of solar-type stars is studied. Rotational mixing changes the global properties of a solar-type star with a significant increase of the effective temperature resulting in a shift of the evolutionary track to the blue part of the HR diagram. These differences are related to changes of the chemical composition, because rotational mixing counteracts the effects of atomic diffusion leading to larger helium surface abundances for rotating models than for non-rotating ones. Higher values of the large frequency separation are then found for rotating models than for non-rotating ones at the same evolutionary stage, because the increase of the effective temperature leads to a smaller radius and hence to an increase of the stellar mean density. Rotational mixing also has a considerable impact on the structure and chemical composition of the central stellar layers by bringing fresh hydrogen fuel to the core, thereby enhancing the main-sequence lifetime. The increase of the central hydrogen abundance together with the change of the chemical profiles in the central layers result in a significant increase of the values of the small frequency separations and of the ratio of the small to large separations for models including shellular rotation. This increase is clearly seen for models with the same age sharing the same initial parameters except for the inclusion of rotation as well as for models with the same global stellar parameters and in particular the same location in the HR diagram. By computing rotating models of solar-type stars including the effects of a dynamo that possibly occurs in the radiative zone, we find that the efficiency of rotational mixing is strongly reduced when the effects of magnetic fields are taken into account, in contrast to what happens in massive stars.
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