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Context: The Kepler space mission is reaching continuous observing times long enough to start studying the fine structure of the observed p-mode spectra. Aims: In this paper, we aim to study the signature of stellar evolution on the radial and p-dominated l=2 modes in an ensemble of red giants that show solar-type oscillations. Results: We find that the phase shift of the central radial mode (eps_c) is significantly different for red giants at a given large frequency separation (Dnu_c) but which burn only H in a shell (RGB) than those that have already ignited core He burning. Even though not directly probing the stellar core the pair of local seismic observables (Dnu_c, eps_c) can be used as an evolutionary stage discriminator that turned out to be as reliable as the period spacing of the mixed dipole modes. We find a tight correlation between eps_c and Dnu_c for RGB stars and no indication that eps_c depends on other properties of these stars. It appears that the difference in eps_c between the two populations becomes if we use an average of several radial orders, instead of a local, i.e. only around the central radial mode, Dnu to determine the phase shift. This indicates that the information on the evolutionary stage is encoded locally, in the shape of the radial mode sequence. This shape turns out to be approximately symmetric around the central radial mode for RGB stars but asymmetric for core He burning stars. We computed radial modes for a sequence of RG models and find them to qualitatively confirm our findings. We also find that, at least in our models, the local Dnu is an at least as good and mostly better proxy for both the asymptotic spacing and the large separation scaled from the model density than the average Dnu. Finally, we investigate the signature of the evolutionary stage on the small frequency separation and quantify the mass dependency of this seismic parameter.
Binary stars are places of complex stellar interactions. While all binaries are in principle converging towards a state of circularization, many eccentric systems are found even in advanced stellar phases. In this work we discuss the sample of binaries with a red-giant component, discovered from observations of the NASA Kepler space mission. We first discuss which effects and features of tidal interactions are detectable in photometry, spectroscopy and the seismic analysis. In a second step, the sample of binary systems observed with Kepler, is compared to the well studied sample of Verbunt & Phinney (1995, hereafter VP95). We find that this study of circularization of systems hosting evolving red-giant stars with deep convective envelopes is also well applicable to the red-giant binaries in the sample of Kepler stars.
The space-borne missions CoRoT and Kepler have provided a large amount of precise photometric data. Among the stars observed, red giants show a rich oscillation pattern that allows their precise characterization. Long-duration observations allow for investigating the fine structure of this oscillation pattern. A common pattern of oscillation frequency was observed in red giant stars, which corresponds to the second-order development of the asymptotic theory. This pattern, called the universal red giant oscillation pattern, describes the frequencies of stellar acoustic modes. We aim to investigate the deviations observed from this universal pattern, thereby characterizing them in terms of the location of the second ionization zone of helium. We also show how this seismic signature depends on stellar evolution. We measured the frequencies of radial modes with a maximum likelihood estimator method, then we identified a modulation corresponding to the departure from the universal oscillation pattern. We identify the modulation component of the radial mode frequency spacings in more than five hundred red giants. The variation in the modulation that we observe at different evolutionary states brings new constraints on the interior models for these stars. We also derive an updated form of the universal pattern that accounts for the modulation and provides highly precise radial frequencies.
Frequencies of acoustic and mixed modes in red giant stars are now determined with high precision thanks to the long continuous observations provided by the NASA Kepler mission. Here we consider the eigenfrequencies of nineteen low-luminosity red giant stars selected by Corsaro et al. (2015) for a detailed peak-bagging analysis. Our objective is to obtain stellar parameters by using individual mode frequencies and spectroscopic information. We use a forward modelling technique based on a minimization procedure combining the frequencies of the p modes, the period spacing of the dipolar modes, and the spectroscopic data. Consistent results between the forward modelling technique and values derived from the seismic scaling relations are found but the errors derived using the former technique are lower. The average error for log g is 0.002 dex, compared to 0.011 dex from the frequency of maximum power and 0.10 dex from the spectroscopic analysis. Relative errors in the masses and radii are on average 2 and 0.5 per cent respectively, compared to 3 and 2 per cent derived from the scaling relations. No reliable determination of the initial helium abundances and the mixing length parameters could be made. Finally, for our grid of models with a given input physics, we found that low-mass stars require higher values of the overshooting parameter.
Kepler allows the measurement of starspot variability in a large sample of field red giants for the first time. With a new method that combines autocorrelation and wavelet decomposition, we measure 361 rotation periods from the full set of 17,377 oscillating red giants in our sample. This represents 2.08% of the stars, consistent with the fraction of spectroscopically detected rapidly rotating giants in the field. The remaining stars do not show enough variability to allow us to measure a reliable surface rotation period. Because the stars with detected rotation periods have measured oscillations, we can infer their global properties, e.g. mass and radius, and quantitatively evaluate the predictions of standard stellar evolution models as a function of mass. Consistent with results for cluster giants when we consider only the 4881 intermediate-mass stars, M>2.0 M$_odot$ from our full red giant sample, we do not find the enhanced rates of rapid rotation expected from angular momentum conservation. We therefore suggest that either enhanced angular momentum loss or radial differential rotation must be occurring in these stars. Finally, when we examine the 575 low-mass (M<1.1 M$_odot$) red clump stars in our sample, which were expected to exhibit slow (non-detectable) rotation, 15% of them actually have detectable rotation. This suggests a high rate of interactions and stellar mergers on the red giant branch.
The first public release of long-cadence stellar photometric data collected by the NASA Kepler mission has now been made available. In this paper we characterise the red-giant (G-K) stars in this large sample in terms of their solar-like oscillations. We use published methods and well-known scaling relations in the analysis. Just over 70% of the red giants in the sample show detectable solar-like oscillations, and from these oscillations we are able to estimate the fundamental properties of the stars. This asteroseismic analysis reveals different populations: low-luminosity H-shell burning red-giant branch stars, cool high-luminosity red giants on the red-giant branch and He-core burning clump and secondary-clump giants.