No Arabic abstract
The GIII red giant star epsilon Oph has been found to exhibit several modes of oscillation by the MOST mission. We interpret the observed frequencies of oscillation in terms of theoretical radial p-mode frequencies of stellar models. Evolutionary models of this star, in both shell H-burning and core He-burning phases of evolution, are constructed using as constraints a combination of measurements from classical ground-based observations (for luminosity, temperature, and chemical composition) and seismic observations from MOST. Radial frequencies of models in either evolutionary phase can reproduce the observed frequency spectrum of epsilon Oph almost equally well. The best-fit models indicate a mass in the range of 1.85 +/- 0.05 Msun with radius of 10.55 +/- 0.15 Rsun. We also obtain an independent estimate of the radius of epsilon Oph using high accuracy interferometric observations in the infrared K band, using the CHARA/FLUOR instrument. The measured limb darkened disk angular diameter of epsilon Oph is 2.961 +/- 0.007 mas. Together with the Hipparcos parallax, this translates into a photospheric radius of 10.39 +/- 0.07 Rsun. The radius obtained from the asteroseismic analysis matches the interferometric value quite closely even though the radius was not constrained during the modelling.
Asteroseismic analysis of solar-like stars allows us to determine physical parameters such as stellar mass, with a higher precision compared to most other methods. Even in a well-studied cluster such as the Hyades, the masses of the red giant stars are not well known, and previous mass estimates are based on model calculations (isochrones). The four known red giants in the Hyades are assumed to be clump (core-helium-burning) stars based on their positions in colour-magnitude diagrams, however asteroseismology offers an opportunity to test this assumption. Using asteroseismic techniques combined with other methods, we aim to derive physical parameters and the evolutionary stage for the planet hosting star epsilon Tau, which is one of the four red giants located in the Hyades. We analysed time-series data from both ground and space to perform the asteroseismic analysis. By combining high signal-to-noise (S/N) radial-velocity data from the ground-based SONG network with continuous space-based data from the revised Kepler mission K2, we derive and characterize 27 individual oscillation modes for epsilon Tau, along with global oscillation parameters such as the large frequency separation and the ratio between the amplitude of the oscillations measured in radial velocity and intensity as a function of frequency. The latter has been measured previously for only two stars, the Sun and Procyon. Combining the seismic analysis with interferometric and spectroscopic measurements, we derive physical parameters for epsilon Tau, and discuss its evolutionary status.
The successful launches of the CoRoT and Kepler space missions have led to the detections of solar-like oscillations in large samples of red-giant stars. The large numbers of red giants with observed oscillations make it possible to investigate the properties of the sample as a whole: ensemble asteroseismology. In this article we summarise ensemble asteroseismology results obtained from data released by the Kepler Science Team (~150,000 field stars) as presented by Hekker et al. (2011b) and for the clusters NGC 6791, NGC 6811 and NGC 6819 (Hekker et al. 2011a) and we discuss the importance of such studies.
We study the $delta$ Scuti -- red giant binary KIC9773821, the first double-pulsator binary of its kind. It was observed by textit{Kepler} during its four-year mission. Our aims are to ascertain whether the system is bound, rather than a chance alignment, and to identify the evolutionary state of the red giant via asteroseismology. An extension of these aims is to determine a dynamical mass and an age prior for a $delta$ Sct star, which may permit mode identification via further asteroseismic modelling. We determine spectroscopic parameters and radial velocities (RVs) for the red giant component using HERMES@Mercator spectroscopy. Light arrival-time delays from the $delta$ Sct pulsations are used with the red-giant RVs to determine that the system is bound and to infer its orbital parameters, including the binary mass ratio. We use asteroseismology to model the individual frequencies of the red giant to give a mass of $2.10^{+0.20}_{-0.10}$ M$_{odot}$ and an age of $1.08^{+0.06}_{-0.24}$ Gyr. We find that it is a helium-burning secondary clump star, confirm that it follows the standard $ u_{rm max}$ scaling relation, and confirm its observed period spacings match their theoretical counterparts in the modelling code MESA. Our results also constrain the mass and age of the $delta$ Sct star. We leverage these constraints to construct $delta$ Sct models in a reduced parameter space and identify four of its five pulsation modes.
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.
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is performing a near all-sky survey for planets that transit bright stars. In addition, its excellent photometric precision enables asteroseismology of solar-type and red-giant stars, which exhibit convection-driven, solar-like oscillations. Simulations predict that TESS will detect solar-like oscillations in nearly 100 stars already known to host planets. In this paper, we present an asteroseismic analysis of the known red-giant host stars HD 212771 and HD 203949, both systems having a long-period planet detected through radial velocities. These are the first detections of oscillations in previously known exoplanet-host stars by TESS, further showcasing the missions potential to conduct asteroseismology of red-giant stars. We estimate the fundamental properties of both stars through a grid-based modeling approach that uses global asteroseismic parameters as input. We discuss the evolutionary state of HD 203949 in depth and note the large discrepancy between its asteroseismic mass ($M_ast = 1.23 pm 0.15,{rm M}_odot$ if on the red-giant branch or $M_ast = 1.00 pm 0.16,{rm M}_odot$ if in the clump) and the mass quoted in the discovery paper ($M_ast = 2.1 pm 0.1,{rm M}_odot$), implying a change $>30,%$ in the planets mass. Assuming HD 203949 to be in the clump, we investigate the planets past orbital evolution and discuss how it could have avoided engulfment at the tip of the red-giant branch. Finally, HD 212771 was observed by K2 during its Campaign 3, thus allowing for a preliminary comparison of the asteroseismic performances of TESS and K2. We estimate the ratio of the observed oscillation amplitudes for this star to be $A_{rm max}^{rm TESS}/A_{rm max}^{rm K2} = 0.75 pm 0.14$, consistent with the expected ratio of $sim0.85$ due to the redder bandpass of TESS.