Abstract
Determining the ages of red-giant stars is a key problem in stellar astrophysics. One of the difficulties in this determination is to know the evolutionary state of the individual stars – ...i.e. have they started to burn Helium in their cores? That is the topic of this paper. Asteroseismic data provide a route to achieving this information. What we present here is a highly autonomous way of determining the evolutionary state from an analysis of the power spectrum of the light curve. The method is fast and efficient and can provide results for a large number of stars. It uses the structure of the dipole-mode oscillations, which have a mixed character in red-giant stars, to determine some measures that are used in the categorization. It does not require that all the individual components of any given mode be separately characterized. Some 6604 red-giant stars have been classified. Of these, 3566 are determined to be on the red-giant branch, 2077 are red-clump and 439 are secondary-clump stars. We do not specifically identify the low-metallicity, horizontal-branch stars. The difference between red-clump and secondary-clump stars is dependent on the manner in which Helium burning is first initiated. We discuss that the way the boundary between these classifications is set may lead to mis-categorization in a small number of stars. The remaining 522 stars were not classified either because they lacked sufficient power in the dipole modes (so-called depressed dipole modes) or because of conflicting values in the parameters.
A knowledge of stellar ages is crucial for our understanding of many astrophysical phenomena, and yet ages can be difficult to determine. As they become older, stars lose mass and angular momentum, ...resulting in an observed slowdown in surface rotation. The technique of 'gyrochronology' uses the rotation period of a star to calculate its age. However, stars of known age must be used for calibration, and, until recently, the approach was untested for old stars (older than 1 gigayear, Gyr). Rotation periods are now known for stars in an open cluster of intermediate age (NGC 6819; 2.5 Gyr old), and for old field stars whose ages have been determined with asteroseismology. The data for the cluster agree with previous period-age relations, but these relations fail to describe the asteroseismic sample. Here we report stellar evolutionary modelling, and confirm the presence of unexpectedly rapid rotation in stars that are more evolved than the Sun. We demonstrate that models that incorporate dramatically weakened magnetic braking for old stars can--unlike existing models--reproduce both the asteroseismic and the cluster data. Our findings might suggest a fundamental change in the nature of ageing stellar dynamos, with the Sun being close to the critical transition to much weaker magnetized winds. This weakened braking limits the diagnostic power of gyrochronology for those stars that are more than halfway through their main-sequence lifetimes.
A key aspect in the determination of stellar properties is the comparison of observational constraints with predictions from stellar models. Asteroseismic Inference on a Massive Scale (AIMS) is an ...open source code that uses Bayesian statistics and a Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach to find a representative set of models that reproduce a given set of classical and asteroseismic constraints. These models are obtained by interpolation on a pre-calculated grid, thereby increasing computational efficiency. We test the accuracy of the different operational modes within AIMS for grids of stellar models computed with the Liège stellar evolution code (main sequence and red giants) and compare the results to those from another asteroseismic analysis pipeline, PARAM. Moreover, using artificial inputs generated from models within the grid (assuming the models to be correct), we focus on the impact on the precision of the code when considering different combinations of observational constraints (individual mode frequencies, period spacings, parallaxes, photospheric constraints,...). Our tests show the absolute limitations of precision on parameter inferences using synthetic data with AIMS, and the consistency of the code with expected parameter uncertainty distributions. Interpolation testing highlights the significance of the underlying physics to the analysis performance of AIMS and provides caution as to the upper limits in parameter step size. All tests demonstrate the flexibility and capability of AIMS as an analysis tool and its potential to perform accurate ensemble analysis with current and future asteroseismic data yields.
We present the first APOKASC catalog of spectroscopic and asteroseismic data for dwarfs and subgiants. Asteroseismic data for our sample of 415 objects have been obtained by the Kepler mission in ...short (58.5 s) cadence, and light curves span from 30 up to more than 1000 days. The spectroscopic parameters are based on spectra taken as part of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment and correspond to Data Release 13 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We analyze our data using two independent scales, the spectroscopic values from DR13 and those derived from SDSS griz photometry. We use the differences in our results arising from these choices as a test of systematic temperature uncertainties and find that they can lead to significant differences in the derived stellar properties. Determinations of surface gravity ( ), mean density ( ), radius (R), mass (M), and age (τ) for the whole sample have been carried out by means of (stellar) grid-based modeling. We have thoroughly assessed random and systematic error sources in the spectroscopic and asteroseismic data, as well as in the grid-based modeling determination of the stellar quantities provided in the catalog. We provide stellar properties determined for each of the two scales. The median combined (random and systematic) uncertainties are 2% (0.01 dex; ), 3.4% ( ), 2.6% (R), 5.1% (M), and 19% (τ) for the photometric scale and 2% ( ), 3.5% ( ), 2.7% (R), 6.3% (M), and 23% (τ) for the spectroscopic scale. We present comparisons with stellar quantities in the asteroseismic catalog by Chaplin et al. that highlight the importance of having metallicity measurements for determining stellar parameters accurately. Finally, we compare our results with those coming from a variety of sources, including stellar radii determined from TGAS parallaxes and asteroseismic analyses based on individual frequencies. We find a very good agreement for all inferred quantities. The latter comparison, in particular, gives strong support to the determination of stellar quantities based on global seismology, a relevant result for future missions such as TESS and PLATO.
The advent of space-based missions like Kepler has revolutionized the study of solar-type stars, particularly through the measurement and modeling of their resonant modes of oscillation. Here we ...analyze a sample of 66 Kepler main-sequence stars showing solar-like oscillations as part of the Kepler seismic LEGACY project. We use Kepler short-cadence data, of which each star has at least 12 months, to create frequency-power spectra optimized for asteroseismology. For each star, we identify its modes of oscillation and extract parameters such as frequency, amplitude, and line width using a Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo "peak-bagging" approach. We report the extracted mode parameters for all 66 stars, as well as derived quantities such as frequency difference ratios, the large and small separations and the behavior of line widths with frequency and line widths at with , for which we derive parametrizations; and behavior of mode visibilities. These average properties can be applied in future peak-bagging exercises to better constrain the parameters of the stellar oscillation spectra. The frequencies and frequency ratios can tightly constrain the fundamental parameters of these solar-type stars, and mode line widths and amplitudes can test models of mode damping and excitation.
We present a comparison of parallaxes and radii from asteroseismology and Gaia DR1 (TGAS) for 2200 Kepler stars spanning from the main sequence to the red-giant branch. We show that previously ...identified offsets between TGAS parallaxes and distances derived from asteroseismology and eclipsing binaries have likely been overestimated for parallaxes mas ( 90%-98% of the TGAS sample). The observed differences in our sample can furthermore be partially compensated by adopting a hotter scale (such as the infrared flux method) instead of spectroscopic temperatures for dwarfs and subgiants. Residual systematic differences are at the 2% level in parallax across three orders of magnitude. We use TGAS parallaxes to empirically demonstrate that asteroseismic radii are accurate to 5% or better for stars between . We find no significant offset for main-sequence ( ) and low-luminosity RGB stars ( 3-8 ), but seismic radii appear to be systematically underestimated by 5% for subgiants ( 1.5-3 ). We find no systematic errors as a function of metallicity between to dex, and show tentative evidence that corrections to the scaling relation for the large frequency separation ( ) improve the agreement with TGAS for RGB stars. Finally, we demonstrate that beyond asteroseismology will provide more precise distances than end-of-mission Gaia data, highlighting the synergy and complementary nature of Gaia and asteroseismology for studying galactic stellar populations.
The red-giant branch bump provides valuable information for the investigation of the internal structure of low-mass stars. Because current models are unable to accurately predict the occurrence and ...efficiency of mixing processes beyond convective boundaries, one can use the luminosity of the bump-a diagnostic of the maximum extension of the convective envelope during the first-dredge up-as a calibrator for such processes. By combining asteroseismic and spectroscopic constraints, we expand the analysis of the bump to masses and metallicities beyond those previously accessible using globular clusters. Our data set comprises nearly 3000 red-giant stars observed by Kepler and with APOGEE spectra. Using statistical mixture models, we are able to detect the bump in the average seismic parameters max and , and show that its observed position reveals general trends with mass and metallicity in line with expectations from models. Moreover, our analysis indicates that standard stellar models underestimate the depth of efficiently mixed envelopes. The inclusion of significant overshooting from the base of the convective envelope, with an efficiency that increases with decreasing metallicity, allows us to reproduce the observed location of the bump. Interestingly, this trend was also reported in previous studies of globular clusters.
In this work, we have taken advantage of the most recent accurate stellar characterizations carried out using asteroseismology, eclipsing binaries and interferometry to evaluate a comprehensive set ...of empirical relations for the estimation of stellar masses and radii. We have gathered a total of 934 stars-of which around two-thirds are on the main sequence-that are characterized with different levels of precision, most of them having estimates of M, R, Teff, L, g, , and Fe/H. We have deliberately used a heterogeneous sample (in terms of characterizing techniques and spectroscopic types) to reduce the influence of possible biases coming from the observation, reduction, and analysis methods used to obtain the stellar parameters. We have studied a total of 576 linear combinations of Teff, L, g, , and Fe/H (and their logarithms) to be used as independent variables to estimate M or R. We have used an error-in-variables linear regression algorithm to extract the relations and to ensure the fair treatment of the uncertainties. We present a total of 38 new or revised relations that have an adj-R2 regression statistic higher than 0.85, and a relative accuracy and precision better than 10% for almost all the cases. The relations cover almost all the possible combinations of observables, ensuring that, whatever list of observables is available, there is at least one relation for estimating the stellar mass and radius.
PDF
