A New Asteroseismic Diagram For Solar-type Stars

We propose a new kind of seismic diagram, based on the determination of the locations of sharp acoustic features inside a star. We show that by combining the information about the position of the base of the convective envelope or the second helium ionisation zone with a measure of the average large separation, it is possible to constrain the unknown parameters characterising the physical processes in the stellar interior. We demonstrate the application of this technique to the analysis of mock data for a CoRoT target star.Comment: 2 pages, to appear in the proceedings of the "Stellar Pulsation and Evolution" conference, Monte Porzio Catone, June 200

Automated determination of g-mode period spacing of red-giant stars

The Kepler satellite has provided photometric timeseries data of unprecedented length, duty cycle and precision. To fully analyse these data for the tens of thousands of stars observed by Kepler, automated methods are a prerequisite. Here we present an automated procedure to determine the period spacing of gravity modes in red-giant stars ascending the red-giant branch. The gravity modes reside in a cavity in the deep interior of the stars and provide information on the conditions in the stellar core. However, for red giants the gravity modes are not directly observable on the surface, hence this method is based on the pressure-gravity mixed modes that present observable features in the Fourier power spectrum. The method presented here is based on the vertical alignment and symmetry of these mixed modes in a period echelle diagram. We find that we can obtain reliable results for both model frequencies and observed frequencies. Additionally, we carried out Monte Carlo tests to obtain realistic uncertainties on the period spacings with different set of oscillation modes (for the models) and uncertainties on the frequencies. Furthermore, this method has been used to improve mode detection and identification of the observed frequencies in an iterative manner.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA

Asteroseismic estimate of helium abundance of a solar analog binary system

16 Cyg A and B are among the brightest stars observed by Kepler. What makes these stars more interesting is that they are solar analogs. 16 Cyg A and B exhibit solar-like oscillations. In this work we use oscillation frequencies obtained using 2.5 years of Kepler data to determine the current helium abundance of these stars. For this we use the fact that the helium ionization zone leaves a signature on the oscillation frequencies and that this signature can be calibrated to determine the helium abundance of that layer. By calibrating the signature of the helium ionization zone against models of known helium abundance, the helium abundance in the envelope of 16 Cyg A is found to lie in the range 0.231 to 0.251 and that of 16 Cyg B lies in the range 0.218 to 0.266.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap

Asteroseismic determination of helium abundance in stellar envelopes

Intermediate degree modes of the solar oscillations have previously been used to determine the solar helium abundance to a high degree of precision. However, we cannot expect to observe such modes in other stars. In this work we investigate whether low degree modes that should be available from space-based asteroseismology missions can be used to determine the helium abundance, Y, in stellar envelopes with sufficient precision. We find that the oscillatory signal in the frequencies caused by the depression in \Gamma_1 in the second helium ionisation zone can be used to determine the envelope helium abundance of low mass main sequence stars. For frequency errors of 1 part in 10^4, we expect errors \sigma_Y in the estimated helium abundance to range from 0.03 for 0.8M_sun stars to 0.01 for 1.2M_sun stars. The task is more complicated in evolved stars, such as subgiants, but is still feasible if the relative errors in the frequencies are less than 10^{-4}.Comment: To appear in MNRAS. 11 pages, 11 figure

Age dating of an early Milky Way merger via asteroseismology of the naked-eye star ν Indi

Over the course of its history, the Milky Way has ingested multiple smaller satellite galaxies1. Although these accreted stellar populations can be forensically identified as kinematically distinct structures within the Galaxy, it is difficult in general to date precisely the age at which any one merger occurred. Recent results have revealed a population of stars that were accreted via the collision of a dwarf galaxy, called Gaia–Enceladus1, leading to substantial pollution of the chemical and dynamical properties of the Milky Way. Here we identify the very bright, naked-eye star ν Indi as an indicator of the age of the early in situ population of the Galaxy. We combine asteroseismic, spectroscopic, astrometric and kinematic observations to show that this metal-poor, alpha-element-rich star was an indigenous member of the halo, and we measure its age to be 11.0±0.7 (stat) ±0.8 (sys) billion years. The star bears hallmarks consistent with having been kinematically heated by the Gaia–Enceladus collision. Its age implies that the earliest the merger could have begun was 11.6 and 13.2 billion years ago, at 68% and 95% confidence, respectively. Computations based on hierarchical cosmological models slightly reduce the above limits

Nature of rare earth element abundances in shallow marine platform carbonates

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