Scientific Publications

On this page you will find a list of all peer reviewed KASC publications that have been published in a scientific journal.

Rotational modulation in A and F stars: Magnetic stellar spots or convective core rotation?

Andreea I. Henriksen, Victoria Antoci, Hideyuki Saio, Matteo Cantiello, Hans Kjeldsen, Donald W. Kurtz, Simon J. Murphy, Savita Mathur, Rafael A. García, Ângela R. G. Santos.
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The Kepler mission revealed a plethora of stellar variability in the light curves of many stars, some associated with magnetic activity or stellar oscillations. In this work, we analyse the periodic signal in 162 intermediate-mass stars, interpreted as Rossby modes and rotational modulation - the so-called hump & spike feature. We investigate whether the rotational modulation (spike) is due to stellar spots caused by magnetic fields or due to Overstable Convective (OsC) modes resonantly exciting g modes, with frequencies corresponding to the convective core rotation rate. Assuming that the spikes are created by magnetic spots at the stellar surface, we recover the amplitudes of the magnetic fields, which are in good agreement with theoretical predictions. Our data show a clear anti-correlation between the spike amplitudes and stellar mass and possibly a correlation with stellar age, consistent with the dynamo-generated magnetic fields theory in (sub)-surface convective layers. Investigating the harmonic behaviour, we find that for 125 stars neither of the two possible explanations can be excluded. While our results suggest that the dynamo-generated magnetic field scenario is more likely to explain the spike feature, we assess further work is needed to distinguish between the two scenarios. One method for ruling out one of the two explanations is to directly observe magnetic fields in hump & spike stars. Another would be to impose additional constraints through detailed modelling of our stars, regarding the rotation requirement in the OsC mode scenario or the presence of a convective-core (stellar age).

Mode Mixing and Rotational Splittings: II. Reconciling Different Approaches to Mode Coupling

Joel Ong, Charlotte Gehan.
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In the mixed-mode asteroseismology of subgiants and red giants, the coupling between the p- and g-mode cavities must be understood well in order to derive localised estimates of interior rotation from measurements of mode multiplet rotational splittings. There exist now two different descriptions of this coupling: one based on an asymptotic quantisation condition, and the other arising from the coupling matrices associated with "acoustic molecular orbitals". We examine the analytic properties of both, and derive closed-form expressions for various quantities — such as the period-stretching function $\tau$ — which previously had to be solved for numerically. Using these, we reconcile both formulations for the first time, deriving relations by which quantities in each formulation may be translated to and interpreted within the other. This yields an information criterion for whether a given configuration of mixed modes may meaningfully constrain the parameters of the asymptotic construction, which is likely not satisfied by the majority of stars in our observational sample. Since this construction has been extensively used to make existing rotational measurements of evolved stars, we examine the robustness of such measurements. While averaged estimates of core rotation seem fairly robust, template-matching using the asymptotic construction appears to have difficulty reliably assigning rotational splittings to individual multiplets, or estimating the mixing fractions $\zeta$ of the most p-dominated mixed modes, where such estimates are most needed. Extending the two-zone model of radial differential rotation, e.g. via rotational inversions, will thus most likely require using the coupling-matrix construction instead.

Surface magnetism of rapidly rotating red giants: single versus close binary stars

C. Gehan, P. Gaulme, J. Yu.
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According to dynamo theory, stars with convective envelopes efficiently generate surface magnetic fields, which manifest as magnetic activity in the form of starspots, faculae, flares, when their rotation period is shorter than their convective turnover time. Most red giants, having undergone significant spin down while expanding, have slow rotation and no spots. However, based on a sample of about 4500 red giants observed by the NASA Kepler mission, \citetGaulme_2020 showed that about 8 % display spots, including about 15 % that belong to close binary systems. Here, we shed light on a puzzling fact: for rotation periods less than 80 days, a red giant that belongs to a close binary system displays a photometric modulation about an order of magnitude larger than that of a single red giant with similar rotational period and physical properties. We investigate whether binarity leads to larger magnetic fields when tides lock systems, or if a different spot distribution on single versus close binary stars can explain this fact. For this, we measure the chromospheric emission in the Caii H & K lines of 3130 of the 4465 stars studied by \citetGaulme_2020 thanks to the LAMOST survey. We show that red giants in a close-binary configuration with spin-orbit resonance display significantly larger chromospheric emission than single stars, suggesting that tidal locking leads to larger magnetic fields at a fixed rotational period. Beyond bringing interesting new observables to study the evolution of binary systems, this result could be used to distinguish single versus binary red giants in automatic pipelines based on machine learning.

Spinning up the Surface: Evidence for Planetary Engulfment or Unexpected Angular Momentum Transport?

Jamie Tayar, Facundo D. Moyano, Melinda Soares-Furtado, Ana Escorza, Meridith Joyce, Sarah L. Martell, Rafael A. García, Sylvain N. Breton, Stéphane Mathis, Savita Mathur, Vincent Delsanti, Sven Kiefer, Sabine Reffert, Dominic M. Bowman, Timothy Van Reeth, Shreeya Shetye, Charlotte Gehan and 1 coauthors.
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In this paper, we report the potential detection of a nonmonotonic radial rotation profile in a low- mass lower-luminosity giant star. For most low- and intermediate-mass stars, the rotation on the main sequence seems to be close to rigid. As these stars evolve into giants, the core contracts and the envelope expands, which should suggest a radial rotation profile with a fast core and a slower envelope and surface. KIC 9267654, however, seems to show a surface rotation rate that is faster than its bulk envelope rotation rate, in conflict with this simple angular momentum conservation argument. We improve the spectroscopic surface constraint, show that the pulsation frequencies are consistent with the previously published core and envelope rotation rates, and demonstrate that the star does not show strong chemical peculiarities. We discuss the evidence against any close stellar companion. Finally, we discuss the possible origin of this unusual rotation profile, including the potential ingestion of a giant planet or unusual angular momentum transport by tidal inertial waves triggered by a close substellar companion, and encourage further observational and theoretical efforts.

KIC 7955301: a hierarchical triple system with oscillating red giant

Patrick Gaulme, Tamás Borkovits, Thierry Appourchaux, Kreimir Pavlovski, Federico Spada, Charlotte Gehan, Joel Ong, Andrea Miglio, Andrew Tkachenko, Beno\^t Mosser, Mathieu Vrard, Mansour Benbakoura, S. Drew Chojnowski, Jean Perkins, Anne Hedlund, Jason Jackiewicz.
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KIC 7955301 is a hierarchical triple system with clear eclipse timing and depth variations that was discovered by the \kep satellite during its original mission. It is composed of a non-eclipsing primary star at the bottom of the red giant branch on a 209-day orbit with a K/G-type main-sequence inner eclipsing binary, orbiting in 15.3 days. This system was noted for the large amplitude of its eclipse timing variations (over 4 hours), and the detection of clear solar-like oscillations of the red-giant component, including p-modes of degree up to $l=3$ and mixed $l=1$ modes. The system is a single-lined spectroscopic triple, meaning that only spectral lines from the RG are trackable along the orbit. We perform a dynamical model by combining the 4-year-long \kep photometric data, eclipse timing variations and radial-velocity data obtained with the high resolution spectrometers ARCES of the 3.5-m ARC telescope at Apache Point observatory and SOPHIE of the 1.93-m telescope at Haute Provence Observatory. The “dynamical” mass of the red-giant component is determined with a 2 % precision at $1.30^{+0.03}_{-0.02} M_\odot$. We perform asteroseismic modeling based on the global seismic parameters and on the individual frequencies. Both methods provide an estimate of the mass of the red giant that matches the dynamical mass within the uncertainties. Asteroseismology also reveals the rotation rate of the core ($\approx 15$ days), the envelope ($\sim 150$ days), and the inclination ($\sim75^\circ$) of the red giant. Three different approaches lead to estimating the age to range between 3.3 and 5.8 Gyr, which highlights the difficulty of determining stellar ages despite the exceptional wealth of information available for this system. On short timescales, the inner binary exhibits eclipses with varying depths during a $\approx7.3$ year-long interval, and no eclipses during the consecutive $\approx11.9$ years. This is why Kepler could detect its eclipses, TESS will not, and the future ESA PLATO mission should. Over the long term, the system appears to be stable and owes its evolution to the evolution of its individual components. This triple system could end its current smooth evolution by merging by the end of the red giant branch of the primary star because the periastron distance is $\approx 142 R_\odot$, which is close to the expected radius of the red giant at the tip of the RG branch.

Extension of the Asfgrid for Correcting Asteroseismic Large Frequency Separations

Dennis Stello, Sanjib Sharma.
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The asteroseismic scaling relation, $\Delta\nu \simeq \rho^{0.5}$, linking a star’s large frequency separation, $\Delta\nu$, and its mean density, $\rho$, is not exact. Yet, it provides a very useful way to obtain fundamental stellar properties. Common ways to make the relation more accurate is to apply correction factors to it. Because the corrections depend on stellar properties, such as mass, Teff , and metallicity, it is customary to interpolate these properties over stellar model grids that include both ∆ν, measured from adiabatic frequencies of the models, and the models’ stellar density; hence linking both sides of the scaling relation. A grid and interpolation tool widely used for this purpose, known as Asfgrid, was published by Sharma & Stello (2016). Here, we present a significant extension of Asfgrid to cover higher- and lower-mass stars and to increase the density of grid points, especially in the low-metallicity regime. [Published in Res. Notes AAS, 6, 168]

Dealing with large gaps in asteroseismic time series

Timothy R. Bedding, Hans Kjeldsen.
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With long data sets available for asteroseismology from space missions, it is sometimes necessary to deal with time series that have large gaps. Because solar-like oscillators have finite mode lifetimes, it has become tempting to close large gaps by shifting time stamps. Using actual data from the Kepler Mission, we show that this results in artificial structures in the power spectrum that compromise the measurements of mode frequencies and linewidths.

Type II and anomalous Cepheids in the Kepler K2 mission

Monika I. Jurkovic, Emese Plachy, László Molnár, Martin A. T. Groenewegen, Attila Bódi, Pawel Moskalik, and Róbert Szabó.
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We present the results of the analysis of Type II and anomalous Cepheids using the data from the Kepler K2 mission. The precise light curves of these pulsating variable stars are the key to study the details of their pulsation, such as the period-doubling effect or the presence of additional modes. We applied the Automated Extended Aperture Photometry (autoEAP) to obtain the light curves of the targeted variable stars which were observed. The light curves were Fourier analyzed. We investigated twelve stars observed by the K2 mission, seven Type II and five anomalous Cepheids. Among the Type II Cepheids EPIC 210622262 shows period-doubling, and four stars have modulation present in their light curves which are different from the period-doubling effect. We calculated the high-order Fourier parameters for the short-period Cepheids. We also determined physical parameters by fitting model atmospheres to the spectral energy distributions. The determined distances using the parallaxes measured by the Gaia space telescope have limited precision below 16 mag for these types of pulsating stars, regardless if the inverse method is used or the statistical method to calculate the distances. The BaSTI evolutionary models were compared to the luminosities and effective temperatures. Most of the Type II Cepheids are modeled with low metallicity models, but for a few of them solar-like metallicity ([Fe/H]=0.06) model is required. The anomalous Cepheids are compared to low-metallicity single stellar models. We do not see signs of binarity among our sample stars.

Integrated Mass Loss of Evolved Stars in M4 using Asteroseismology

Madeline Howell, Simon W. Campbell, Dennis Stello, Gayandhi M. De Silva.
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Mass loss remains a major uncertainty in stellar modelling. In low-mass stars, mass loss is most significant on the red giant branch (RGB), and will impact the star's evolutionary path and final stellar remnant. Directly measuring the mass difference of stars in various phases of evolution represents one of the best ways to quantify integrated mass loss. Globular clusters (GCs) are ideal objects for this. M4 is currently the only GC for which asteroseismic data exists for stars in multiple phases of evolution. Using K2 photometry, we report asteroseismic masses for 75 red giants in M4, the largest seismic sample in a GC to date. We find an integrated RGB mass loss of $\Delta\overline{M} = 0.17 \pm 0.01 ~\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$, equivalent to a Reimers' mass-loss coefficient of $\eta_R = 0.39$. Our results for initial mass, horizontal branch mass, $\eta_R$, and integrated RGB mass loss show remarkable agreement with previous studies, but with higher precision using asteroseismology. We also report the first detections of solar-like oscillations in early asymptotic giant branch (EAGB) stars in GCs. We find an average mass of $\overline{M}_{\text{EAGB}}=0.54 \pm 0.01 ~\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$, significantly lower than predicted by models. This suggests larger-than-expected mass loss on the horizontal branch. Alternatively, it could indicate unknown systematics in seismic scaling relations for the EAGB. We discover a tentative mass bi-modality in the RGB sample, possibly due to the multiple populations. In our red horizontal branch sample, we find a mass distribution consistent with a single value. We emphasise the importance of seismic studies of GCs since they could potentially resolve major uncertainties in stellar theory.

Three ways to solve the orbit of KIC11558725: a 10-day beaming sdB+WD binary with a pulsating subdwarf

J. H. Telting, R. H. stensen, A. S. Baran, S. Bloemen, M. D. Reed, R. Oreiro, L. Farris, T. A. Ottosen, C. Aerts, S. D. Kawaler, U. Heber, S. Prins, E. M. Green, B. Kalomeni, S. J. O'Toole, F. Mullally, D. T. Sanderfer and 2 coauthors.
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The recently discovered subdwarf B pulsator KIC11558725, is one of the 16 pulsating sdB stars detected in the Kepler field, and it features a rich $g$-mode frequency spectrum, with a few low amplitude $p$-modes at short periods. This makes it a promising target for a seismic study aiming to constrain the internal structure of this star, and of sdB stars in general. We present our discovery of the binary nature of this star, derive the orbital parameters with three independent methods, and present a detailed Fourier analysis of the pulsational signal.
We have obtained spectroscopic radial-velocity measurements of KIC11558725 based on low-resolution spectra in the Balmer-line region. We used the Kitt Peak Mayall Telescope, the Nordic Optical Telescope and the William Herschel Telescope for this purpose, spanning the 2010 and 2011 observing seasons. From these data we have discovered that KIC11558725 is a binary with period $P$=10.05 d, and that the radial-velocity amplitude of the sdB star is 58 km s$^{-1}$. Consequently the companion of the sdB star has a minimum mass of 0.63 M$_{\odot}$, and is therefore most likely to be an unseen white dwarf. The orbital radius $a_{\rm sdB}\sin i$ = 11.5 R$_{\odot}$ gives rise to a light-travel time delay of 53.6 s, which causes aliasing and lowers the amplitudes of the shortest pulsation frequencies, unless the effect is corrected for.
We use our high S/N average spectra to study the atmospheric parameters of the sdB star, deriving Teff= 27 910 K and $\log g$ = 5.41 dex, and find that carbon, nitrogen and oxygen are underabundant relative to the solar mixture. We analyse the near-continuous 2010–2011 Kepler light curve to reveal the orbital Doppler-beaming effect, giving rise to light variations at the 238 ppm level, which is consistent with the observed spectroscopic orbital radial-velocity amplitude of the subdwarf.
Furthermore, we analyse the Kepler light curve for its pulsational content and extract more than 160 significant frequencies. We use the strongest 70 pulsation frequencies of the subdwarf as clocks to derive a third consistent measurement of the orbital radial-velocity amplitude of the subdwarf, from the orbital light-travel delay.
We investigate the pulsation frequencies for expected period spacings and rotational splittings. We find period-spacing sequences of spherical-harmonic degrees $\ell$=1 and $\ell$=2, and we associate a large fraction of the $g$-modes in KIC11558725 with these sequences.
From frequency splittings we conclude that the subdwarf is rotating subsynchronously with respect to the orbit.

The Origin of Weakened Magnetic Braking in Old Solar Analogs

Travis S. Metcalfe, Adam J. Finley, Oleg Kochukhov, Victor See, Thomas R. Ayres, Keivan G. Stassun, Jennifer L. van Saders, Catherine A. Clark, Diego Godoy-Rivera, Ilya V. Ilyin, Marc H. Pinsonneault, Klaus G. Strassmeier, Pascal Petit.
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The rotation rates of main-sequence stars slow over time as they gradually lose angular momentum to their magnetized stellar winds. The rate of angular momentum loss depends on the strength and morphology of the magnetic field, the mass-loss rate, and the stellar rotation period, mass, and radius. Previous observations suggested a shift in magnetic morphology between two F-type stars with similar rotation rates but very different ages (88 Leo and rho CrB). In this Letter, we identify a comparable transition in an evolutionary sequence of solar analogs with ages between 2-7 Gyr. We present new spectropolarimetry of 18 Sco and 16 Cyg A&B from the Large Binocular Telescope, and we reanalyze previously published Zeeman Doppler images of HD 76151 and 18 Sco, providing additional constraints on the nature and timing of this transition. We combine archival X-ray observations with updated distances from Gaia to estimate mass-loss rates, and we adopt precise stellar properties from asteroseismology and other sources. We then calculate the wind braking torque for each star in the evolutionary sequence, demonstrating that the rate of angular momentum loss drops by more than an order of magnitude between the ages of HD 76151 and 18 Sco (2.6-3.7 Gyr) and continues to decrease modestly to the age of 16 Cyg A&B (7 Gyr). We suggest that this magnetic transition may represent a disruption of the global dynamo arising from weaker differential rotation, and we outline plans to probe this phenomenon in additional stars spanning a wide range of spectral types.

Advanced asteroseismic modelling: breaking the degeneracy between stellar mass and initial helium abundance

Kuldeep Verma, Jakob L. Rørsted, Aldo M. Serenelli, Víctor Aguirre Børsen-Koch, Mark L. Winther, Amalie Stokholm.
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Current stellar model predictions of adiabatic oscillation frequencies differ significantly from the corresponding observed frequencies due to the non-adiabatic and poorly understood near-surface layers of stars. However, certain combinations of frequencies – known as frequency ratios – are largely unaffected by the uncertain physical processes as they are mostly sensitive to the stellar core. Furthermore, the seismic signature of helium ionization provides envelope properties while being almost independent of the outermost layers. We have developed an advanced stellar modelling approach in which we complement frequency ratios with parameters of the helium ionization zone while taking into account all possible correlations to put the most stringent constraints on the stellar internal structure. We have tested the method using the Kepler benchmark star 16 Cyg A and have investigated the potential of the helium glitch parameters to constrain the basic stellar properties in detail. It has been explicitly shown that the initial helium abundance and mixing-length parameters are well constrained within our framework, reducing systematic uncertainties on stellar mass and age arising for instance from the well-known anti-correlation between the mass and initial helium abundance. The modelling of six additional Kepler stars including 16 Cyg B reinforces the above findings and also confirms that our approach is mostly independent from model uncertainties associated with the near-surface layers. Our method is relatively computationally expensive, however, it provides stellar masses, radii and ages precisely in an automated manner, paving the way for analysing numerous stars observed in the future during the ESA PLATO mission.

On the stellar core physics of the 16 Cyg binary system: constraining the central hydrogen abundance using asteroseismology

Benard Nsamba, Margarida S. Cunha, Catarina I. S. A. Rocha, Cristiano J. G. N. Pereira, Mário J. P. F. G. Monteiro, Tiago L. Campante.
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The unprecedented quality of the asteroseismic data of solar-type stars made available by space missions such as NASA's Kepler telescope are making it possible to explore stellar interior structures. This offers possibilities of constraining stellar core properties (such as core sizes, abundances, and physics) paving the way for improving the precision of the inferred stellar ages. We employ 16 Cyg A and B as our benchmark stars for an asteroseismic study in which we present a novel approach aimed at selecting from a sample of acceptable stellar models returned from Forward Modelling techniques, down to the ones that better represent the core of each star. This is accomplished by comparing specific properties of the observed frequency ratios for each star to the ones derived from the acceptable stellar models. We demonstrate that in this way we are able to constrain further the hydrogen mass fraction in the core, establishing the stars' precise evolutionary states and ages. The ranges of the derived core hydrogen mass fractions are [0.01 - 0.06] and [0.12 - 0.19] for 16 Cyg A and B, respectively, and, considering that the stars are coeval, the age and metal mass fraction parameters span the region [6.4 - 7.4] Gyr and [0.023 - 0.026], respectively. In addition, our findings show that using a single helium-to-heavy element enrichment ratio, ($\Delta Y/\Delta Z$), when forward modelling the 16 Cyg binary system, may result in a sample of acceptable models that do not simultaneously fit the observed frequency ratios, further highlighting that such an approach to the definition of the helium content of the star may not be adequate in studies of individual stars.

Classifying Kepler light curves for 12,000 A and F stars using supervised feature-based machine learning

Nicholas H. Barbara, Timothy R. Bedding, Ben D. Fulcher, Simon J. Murphy, Timothy Van Reeth.
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With the availability of large-scale surveys like Kepler and TESS, there is a pressing need for automated methods to classify light curves according to known classes of variable stars. We introduce a new algorithm for classifying light curves that compares 7000 time-series features to find those which most effectively classify a given set of light curves. We apply our method to Kepler light curves for stars with effective temperatures in the range 6500 to 10,000 K. We show that the sample can be meaningfully represented in an interpretable five-dimensional feature space that separates seven major classes of light curves (delta Scuti stars, gamma Doradus stars, RR Lyrae stars, rotational variables, contact eclipsing binaries, detached eclipsing binaries, and non-variables). We achieve a balanced classification accuracy of 82% on an independent test set of Kepler stars using a Gaussian mixture model classifier. We use our method to classify 12,000 Kepler light curves from Quarter 9 and provide a catalogue of the results. We further outline a confidence heuristic based on probability density with which to search our catalogue, and extract candidate lists of correctly-classified variable stars.

Discovery of post-mass-transfer helium-burning red giants using asteroseismology

Yaguang Li, Timothy R. Bedding, Simon J. Murphy, Dennis Stello, Yifan Chen, Daniel Huber, Meridith Joyce, Dion Marks, Xianfei Zhang, Shaolan Bi, Isabel L. Colman, Michael R. Hayden, Daniel R. Hey, Gang Li, Benjamin T. Montet, Sanjib Sharma, Yaqian Wu.
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A star expands to become a red giant when it has fused all the hydrogen in its core into helium. If the star is in a binary system, its envelope can overflow onto its companion or be ejected into space, leaving a hot core and potentially forming a subdwarf-B star. However, most red giants that have partially transferred envelopes in this way remain cool on the surface and are almost indistinguishable from those that have not. Among $\sim$7000 helium-burning red giants observed by NASA's Kepler mission, we use asteroseismology to identify two classes of stars that must have undergone dramatic mass loss, presumably due to stripping in binary interactions. The first class comprises about 7 under-luminous stars with smaller helium-burning cores than their single-star counterparts. Theoretical models show that these small cores imply the stars had much larger masses when ascending the red giant branch. The second class consists of 32 red giants with masses down to 0.5 M$_\odot$, whose implied ages would significantly exceed the age of the universe had no mass loss occurred. The numbers are consistent with binary statistics, and our results open up new possibilities to study the evolution of post-mass-transfer binary systems.

Detection of non-linear resonances among gravity modes of slowly pulsating B stars: Results from five iterative pre-whitening strategies

J. Van Beeck, D. M. Bowman, M. G. Pedersen, T. Van Reeth, T. Van Hoolst, C. Aerts.
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Context. Slowly pulsating B (SPB) stars are main-sequence multiperiodic oscillators that display non-radial gravity modes. For a fraction of these pulsators, 4-year photometric light curves obtained with the Kepler space telescope reveal period spacing patterns from which their internal rotation and mixing can be inferred. In this inference, any direct resonant mode coupling is usually ignored. Aims. We re-analyse the light curves of a sample of 38 known Kepler SPB stars. For 26 of them, the internal structure, including rotation and mixing, was recently inferred from their dipole prograde oscillation modes. Our aim is to detect direct non-linear resonant mode coupling among the largest-amplitude gravity modes. Methods. We extract up to 200 periodic signals per star with five different iterative pre-whitening strategies based on linear and non-linear regression applied to the light curves. We then identify candidate coupled gravity modes by verifying whether they fulfill resonant phase relations. Results. For 32 of the 38 SPB stars we find at least one candidate resonance that is detected in both the linear and the best non-linear regression model fit to the light curve and involves at least one of the two largest-amplitude modes. Conclusions. The majority of the Kepler SPB stars reveal direct non-linear resonances based on the largest-amplitude modes. These stars are thus prime targets for the non-linear asteroseismic modelling of intermediate-mass dwarfs to assess the importance of mode couplings in probing their internal physics.

Study of Chemically Peculiar Stars-I : High-resolution Spectroscopy and K2 Photometry of Am Stars in the Region of M44

Santosh Joshi, O. Trust, E. Semenko, P. E. Williams, P. Lampens, P. De Cat, L. Vermeylen, D. L. Holdsworth, R. A. García, S. Mathur, A. R. G. Santos, D. Mkrtichian, A. Goswami, M. Cuntz, A. P. Yadav, M. Sarkar, B. C. Bhatt and 16 coauthors.
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We present a study based on the high-resolution spectroscopy and K2 space photometry of five chemically peculiar stars in the region of the open cluster M44. The analysis of the high-precision photometric K2 data reveals that the light variations in HD73045 and HD76310 are rotational in nature and caused by spots or cloud-like co-rotating structures, which are non-stationary and short-lived. The time-resolved radial velocity measurements, in combination with the K2 photometry, confirm that HD 73045 does not show any periodic variability on timescales shorter than 1.3d, contrary to previous reports in the literature. In addition to these new rotational variables, we discovered a new heartbeat system, HD73619, where no pulsational signatures are seen. The spectroscopic and spectropolarimetric analyses indicate that HD73619 belongs to the peculiar Am class, with either a weak or no magnetic field considering the 200G detection limit of our study. The Least-Squares Deconvolution (LSD) profiles for HD76310 indicate a complex structure in its spectra suggesting that this star is either part of a binary system or surrounded by a cloud shell. When placed in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, all studied stars are evolved from main-sequence and situated in the delta Scuti instability strip. The present work is relevant for further detailed studies of CP stars, such as inhomogeneities (including spots) in the absence of magnetic fields and the origin of the pulsational variability in heartbeat systems.

Automated Extended Aperture Photometry of K2 variable stars

Attila Bódi, Pál Szabó, Emese Plachy, László Molnár, Róbert Szabó.
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Proper photometric data are challenging to obtain in the K2 mission of the Kepler space telescope due to strong systematics caused by the two-wheel-mode operation. It is especially true for variable stars wherein physical phenomena occur on timescales similar to the instrumental signals. We originally developed a method with the aim to extend the photometric aperture to be able to compensate the motion of the telescope which we named Extended Aperture Photometry (EAP). Here we present the outline of the automatized version of the EAP method, an open-source pipeline called autoEAP. We compare the light curve products to other photometric solutions for examples chosen from high-amplitude variable stars. Besides the photometry, we developed a new detrending method, which is based on phase dispersion minimization and is able to eliminate long-term instrumental signals for periodic variable stars.

The Kepler IRIS Catalog: Image subtraction light curves for 9,150 stars in and around the open clusters NGC 6791 and NGC 6819

Isabel L. Colman, Timothy R. Bedding, Daniel Huber, Hans Kjeldsen.
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The four-year Kepler mission collected long cadence images of the open clusters NGC 6791 and NGC 6819, known as “superstamps.” Each superstamp region is a 200-pixel square that captures thousands of cluster members, plus foreground and background stars, of which only the brightest were targeted for long or short cadence photometry during the Kepler mission. Using image subtraction photometry, we have produced light curves for every object in the Kepler Input Catalog that falls on the superstamps. The IRIS catalog includes light curves for 9,150 stars, and contains a wealth of new data: 8,427 of these stars were not targeted at all by Kepler, and we have increased the number of available quarters of long cadence data for 382 stars. The catalog is available as a high-level science product on MAST, with both raw photometric data for each quarter and corrected light curves for all available quarters for each star. We also present an introduction to our implementation of image subtraction photometry and the open source IRIS pipeline, alongside an overview of the data products, systematics, and catalog statistics.

Vetting Asteroseismic $\Delta\nu$ Measurements using Neural Networks

Claudia Reyes, Dennis Stello, Marc Hon, Joel C. Zinn.
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Precise asteroseismic parameters allow one to quickly estimate radius and mass distributions for large samples of stars. A number of automated methods are available to calculate the frequency of maximum acoustic power ($\nu_{\mathrm{max}}$) and the frequency separation between overtone modes ($\Delta\nu$) from the power spectra of red giants. However, filtering through the results requires either manual vetting, elaborate averaging across multiple methods, or sharp cuts in certain parameters to ensure robust samples of stars free of outliers. Given the importance of ensemble studies for Galactic archaeology and the surge in data availability, faster methods for obtaining reliable asteroseismic parameters are desirable. We present a neural network classifier that vets $\Delta\nu$ by combining multiple features from the visual $\Delta\nu$ vetting process. Our classifier is able to analyse large numbers of stars determining whether their measured $\Delta\nu$ are reliable thus delivering clean samples of oscillating stars with minimal effort. Our classifier is independent of the method used to obtain $\nu_{\mathrm{max}}$ and $\Delta\nu$, and therefore can be applied as a final step to any such method. Tests of our classifier's performance on manually vetted $\Delta\nu$ measurements reach an accuracy of 95%. We apply the method to giants observed by K2 Galactic Archaeology Program and find that our results retain stars with astrophysical oscillation parameters consistent with the parameter distributions already defined by well-characterised Kepler red giants.

Towards a systematic treatment of observational uncertainties in forward asteroseismic modelling of gravity-mode pulsators

Dominic M. Bowman, Mathias Michielsen.
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Context. In asteroseismology the pulsation mode frequencies of a star are the fundamental data that are compared to theoretical predictions to determine a star’s interior physics. Recent significant advances in the numerical, theoretical and statistical asteroseismic methods applied to main sequence stars with convective cores have renewed the interest in investigating the propagation of observational uncertainties within a forward asteroseismic modelling framework. Aims. We aim to quantify the impact of various choices made throughout the observational aspects of extracting pulsation mode frequencies in main sequence stars with gravity modes. Methods. We use a well-studied benchmark slowly pulsating B star, KIC 7760680, to investigate the sensitivity of forward asteroseismic modelling to various sources of observational uncertainty that affect the precision of the input pulsation mode frequencies. Results. We quantify the impact of the propagation of the observational uncertainties involved in forward asteroseismic modelling. We find that one of the largest sources of uncertainty in our benchmark star is in the manual building of period spacing patterns, such that the inclusion of a potentially ambiguous pulsation mode frequency may yield differences in model parameters of up to 10% for mass and age depending on the radial order of the mode. Conclusions. We conclude that future asteroseismic studies of main sequence stars with a convective core should quantify and include observational uncertainties introduced by the light curve extraction, iterative pre-whitening and the building of period spacing patterns, as these propagate into the final modelling results.

Five young delta Scuti stars in the Pleiades seen with Kepler/K2

Simon J. Murphy, Timothy R. Bedding, Timothy R. White, Yaguang Li, Daniel Hey, Daniel Reese, Meridith Joyce.
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We perform mode identification for five $\delta$ Scuti stars in the Pleiades star cluster, using custom light curves from K2 photometry. By creating échelle diagrams, we identify radial and dipole mode ridges, comprising a total of 28 radial and 16 dipole modes across the five stars. We also suggest possible identities for those modes that lie offset from the radial and dipole ridges. We calculate non-rotating stellar pulsation models to verify our mode identifications, finding good agreement within the age and metallicity constraints of the cluster. We also find that for all stars, the least dense models are preferred, reflecting the lower density of these oblate, rotating stars. Three of the five stars show rotationally-split multiplets. We conclude that the sample shows promise for asteroseismic rotation rates, masses, and ages with rotating models in the future. Our preliminary modelling also indicates some sensitivity to the helium abundance.

Spectroscopic and seismic analysis of red giants in eclipsing binaries discovered by Kepler

M. Benbakoura, P. Gaulme, J. McKeever, S. Sekaran, P. G. Beck, F. Spada, J. Jackiewicz, S. Mathis, S. Mathur, A. Tkachenko, R. A. García.
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A binary with a $\delta$ Scuti star and an oscillating red giant: orbit and asteroseismology of KIC 9773821

Simon J. Murphy, Tanda Li, Sanjay Sekaran, Timothy R. Bedding, Jie Yu, Andrew Tkachenko, Isabel Colman, Daniel Huber, Daniel Hey, Tinatin Baratashvil, Soetkin Janssens.
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We study the $\delta$ Scuti – red giant binary KIC 9773821, the first double-pulsator binary of its kind. It was observed by 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 \mga$2.10^{+0.20}_{-0.10}$ M$_{\sun}$ 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 $\nu_{\rm max}$ 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.

Mixed Modes and Asteroseismic Surface Effects: I. Analytic Treatment

J. M. Joel Ong, Sarbani Basu, Ian W. Roxburgh.
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Normal-mode oscillation frequencies computed from stellar models differ from those which would be measured from stars with identical interior structures, because of modelling errors in the near-surface layers. These frequency differences are referred to as the asteroseismic "surface term". The vast majority of solar-like oscillators which have been observed, and which are expected to be observed in the near future, are evolved stars which exhibit mixed modes. For these evolved stars, the inference of stellar properties from these mode frequencies has been shown to depend on how this surface term is corrected for. We show that existing parametrisations of the surface term account for mode mixing only to first order in perturbation theory, if at all, and therefore may not be adequate for evolved stars. Moreover, existing nonparametric treatments of the surface term do not account for mode mixing. We derive both a first-order construction, and a more general approach, for one particular class of nonparametric methods. We illustrate the limits of first-order approximations from both analytic considerations and using numerical injection-recovery tests on stellar models. First-order corrections for the surface term are strictly only applicable where the size of the surface term is much smaller than both the coupling strength between the mixed p- and g-modes, as well as the local g-mode spacing. Our more general matrix construction may be applied to evolved stars, where perturbation theory cannot be relied upon.

Mixed Modes and Asteroseismic Surface Effects: II. Subgiant Systematics

J. M. Joel Ong, Sarbani Basu, Mikkel N. Lund, Allyson Bieryla, Lucas S. Viani, David Latham.
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Models of solar-like oscillators yield acoustic modes at different frequencies than would be seen in actual stars possessing identical interior structure, due to modelling error near the surface. This asteroseismic “surface term” must be corrected when mode frequencies are used to infer stellar structure. Subgiants exhibit solar-like oscillations of mixed acoustic ($p$-mode) and gravity ($g$-mode) character, which defy description by the traditional $p$-mode asymptotic relation. Since nonparametric diagnostics of the surface term rely on this asymptotic description, they cannot be applied to subgiants directly. In the first paper of this series, we generalised such nonparametric methods to mixed modes, and showed that traditional surface-term corrections only account for mixed-mode coupling to, at best, first order in a perturbative expansion. In this paper, we apply those results, modelling subgiants using asteroseismic data. We demonstrate that, for grid-based inference of subgiant properties using individual mode frequencies, neglecting higher-order effects of mode coupling in the surface term results in significant systematic differences in the inferred stellar masses, and measurable systematics in other fundamental properties. This is true for both parametric and nonparametric formulations of the surface term. This suggests that mode coupling should be fully accounted for when correcting for the surface term in seismic modelling with mixed modes, irrespective of the choice of correction used. We also show that the properties inferred of subgiants, in particular masses and ages, also depend on the choice of surface-term correction, in a different manner from both main-sequence and red giant stars.

An observational testbed for cosmological zoom-in simulations: constraining stellar migration in the solar cylinder using asteroseismology

Kuldeep Verma, Robert J. J. Grand, Víctor Silva Aguirre, Amalie Stokholm.
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Large-scale stellar surveys coupled with recent developments in magneto-hydrodynamical simulations of the formation of Milky Way-mass galaxies provide an unparalleled opportunity to unveil the physical processes driving the evolution of the Galaxy. We developed a framework to compare a variety of parameters with their corresponding predictions from simulations in an unbiased manner, taking into account the selection function of a stellar survey. We applied this framework to a sample of over 7000 stars with asteroseismic, spectroscopic, and astrometric data available, together with 6 simulations from the Auriga project. We found that some simulations are able to produce abundance dichotomies in the $[{\rm Fe}/{\rm H}]-[\alpha/{\rm Fe}]$ plane which look qualitatively similar to observations. The peak of their velocity distributions match the observed data reasonably well, however they predict hotter kinematics in terms of the tails of the distributions and the vertical velocity dispersion. Assuming our simulation sample is representative of Milky Way-like galaxies, we put upper limits of 2.21 and 3.70 kpc on radial migration for young ($< 4$ Gyr) and old ($\in [4, 8]$ Gyr) stellar populations in the solar cylinder. Comparison between the observed and simulated metallicity dispersion as a function of age further constrains migration to about 1.97 and 2.91 kpc for the young and old populations. These results demonstrate the power of our technique to compare numerical simulations with high-dimensional datasets, and paves the way for using the wider field TESS asteroseismic data together with the future generations of simulations to constrain the subgrid models for turbulence, star formation and feedback processes.

Asteroseismology of overmassive, undermassive, and potential pastmembers of the open cluster NGC 6791

K. Brogaard, T. Arentoft, J. Jessen-Hansen, A. Miglio.
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We perform an asteroseismic investigation of giant stars in the field of NGC 6791 with previous indications of atypical evolution. The analysis makes use of observations from Kepler and Gaia in combination with ground-based photometry, a literature radial-velocity study, and measurements of eclipsing binaries in the cluster. We derive mass, radius, effective temperature, evolutionary stage and apparent distance modulus of each target. Among the investigated cluster giants we find clear evidence of overmassive and undermassive members, and non-members with strong hints of potential past membership. Our results indicate that about 10% of the red giants in the cluster have experienced mass-transfer or a merger. High-resolution high-S/N spectroscopic follow-up could confirm potential past membership of the non-members, and reveal whether certain element abundances might expose the non-standard evolution of overmassive and undermassive stars. If so, field stars of similar type could be identified as what they are, i.e. over- or undermassive stars, and not mistakenly classified as younger or older than they are.

Asteroseismic inference of the central structure in a subgiant star

Earl P. Bellinger, Sarbani Basu, Saskia Hekker, Joergen Christensen-Dalsgaard, Warrick H. Ball.
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Asteroseismic measurements enable inferences of the underlying stellar structure, such as the density and the speed of sound at various points within the interior of the star. This provides an opportunity to test stellar evolution theory by assessing whether the predicted structure of a star agrees with the measured structure. Thus far, this kind of inverse analysis has only been applied to the Sun and three solar-like main-sequence stars. Here we extend the technique to stars on the subgiant branch, and apply it to one of the best-characterized subgiants of the Kepler mission, HR 7322. The observation of mixed oscillation modes in this star facilitates inferences of the conditions of its inert helium core, nuclear-burning hydrogen shell, and the deeper parts of its radiative envelope. We find that despite significant differences in the mode frequencies, the structure near to the center of this star does not differ significantly from the predicted structure.

Revisiting the impact of stellar magnetic activity on the detectability of solar-like oscillations by Kepler

Savita Mathur, Rafael A. García, Lisa Bugnet, \^Angela R. G. Santos, Netsha Santiago, Paul G. Beck.
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Over 2,000 stars were observed for one month with a high enough cadence in order to look for acoustic modes during the survey phase of the \kep mission. Solar-like oscillations have been detected in about 540 stars. The question of why no oscillations were detected in the remaining stars is still open. Previous works explained the non-detection of modes with the high level of magnetic activity of the stars. However, the sample of stars studied contained some classical pulsators and red giants that could have biased the results. In this work, we revisit this analysis on a cleaner sample of main-sequence solar-like stars that consists of 1,014 stars. First we compute the predicted amplitude of the modes of that sample and for the stars with detected oscillation and compare it to the noise at high frequency in the power spectrum. We find that the stars with detected modes have an amplitude to noise ratio larger than 0.94. We measure reliable rotation periods and the associated photometric magnetic index for 684 stars out of the full sample and in particular for 323 stars where the amplitude of the modes is predicted to be high enough to be detected. We find that among these 323 stars 32% of them have a level of magnetic activity larger than the Sun during its maximum activity, explaining the non-detection of acoustic modes. Interestingly, magnetic activity cannot be the primary reason responsible for the absence of detectable modes in the remaining 68$\%$ of the stars without acoustic modes detected and with reliable rotation periods. Thus, we investigate metallicity, inclination angle of the rotation axis, and binarity as possible causes of low mode amplitudes. Using spectroscopic observations for a subsample, we find that a low metallicity could be the reason for suppressed modes. No clear correlation with binarity nor inclination is found. We also derive the lower limit for our photometric activity index (of 20-30 ppm) below which rotation and magnetic activity are not detected. Finally, with our analysis we conclude that stars with a photometric activity index larger than 2,000 ppm have 98.3% probability of not having oscillations detected.

Internal mixing of rotating stars inferred from dipole gravity modes

May G. Pedersen, Conny Aerts, Péter I. Pápics, Mathias Michielsen, Sarah Gebruers, Tamara M. Rogers, Geert Molenberghs, Siemen Burssens, Stefano Garcia, Dominic M. Bowman.
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During most of their life, stars fuse hydrogen into helium in their cores. The mixing of chemical elements in the radiative envelope of stars with a convective core is able to replenish the core with extra fuel. If effective, such deep mixing allows stars to live longer and change their evolutionary path. Yet localized observations to constrain internal mixing are absent so far. Gravity modes probe the deep stellar interior near the convective core and allow us to calibrate internal mixing processes. Here we provide core-to-surface mixing profiles inferred from observed dipole gravity modes in 26 rotating stars with masses between 3 and 10 solar masses. We find a wide range of internal mixing levels across the sample. Stellar models with stratified mixing profiles in the envelope reveal the best asteroseismic performance. Our results provide observational guidance for three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of transport processes in the deep interiors of stars.
(You can also view the paper here: https://rdcu.be/ckjRm)

Orbital solutions derived from radial velocities and time delays for four Kepler systems with A/F-type hybrid pulsations

P. Lampens, L. Vermeylen, Y. Frémat, Á. Sódor, M. Skarka, A. Samadi-Ghadim, Zs. Bognár, H. Lehmann, P. De Cat, A. Goswami, L. Dumortier.
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The presence of A/F-type Kepler hybrid stars extending across the entirety of the delta Scuti -gamma Doradus instability strips and beyond remains largely unexplained. In order to better understand these particular stars, we performed a multi-epoch spectroscopic study of a sample of 49 candidate A/F-type hybrid stars and one cool(er) hybrid object detected by the Kepler mission. We determined a lower limit for the multiplicity fraction of 27 %. For six spectroscopic systems, we also reported long-term variations in the time delays (TDs). For four of them, the TD variations are fully coherent with those of the RVs and can be attributed to orbital motion. We aim to improve the orbital solutions for those spectroscopic systems with long orbital periods (order of 4-6 years) among the Kepler hybrid stars that we continued to observe. The orbits are computed based on a simultaneous modelling of the RVs obtained with high-resolution spectrographs and the photometric TDs derived from time-dependent frequency analyses of the Kepler light curves. We refined the orbital solutions of four spectroscopic systems with A/F-type Kepler hybrid component stars: KIC 4480321,  5219533,  8975515 and KIC 9775454. Simultaneous modelling of both data types analysed together enabled us to improve the orbital solutions (all), obtain more robust and accurate information on the mass ratio (some for the first time), and identify the component with short-period delta Sct-type pulsations (all). The information gained is maximized when one of the components, generally the one exhibiting the delta Sct-type pulsations, is a fast rotator. In several cases, we were also able to derive new constraints for the minimum component masses. From a search for regular frequency patterns in the high-frequency regime of the Fourier transforms of each system, we found no evidence of tidal splitting among the triple systems with close (inner) companions. However, some systems exhibit frequency spacings which can be explained by the mechanism of rotational splitting.

Asteroseismology of luminous red giants with Kepler. II. Dependence of mass loss on pulsations and radiation

Jie Yu, Saskia Hekker, Timothy R. Bedding, Dennis Stello, Daniel Huber, Laurent Gizon, Shourya Khanna, Shaolan Bi.
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Mass loss by red giants is an important process to understand the final stages of stellar evolution and the chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium. Mass-loss rates are thought to be controlled by pulsation-enhanced dust-driven outflows. Here we investigate the relationships between mass loss, pulsations, and radiation, using 3213 luminous Kepler red giants and 135000 ASAS–SN semiregulars and Miras. Mass-loss rates are traced by infrared colours using 2MASS and WISE and by observed-to-model WISE fluxes, and are also estimated using dust mass-loss rates from literature assuming a typical gas-to-dust mass ratio of 400. To specify the pulsations, we extract the period and height of the highest peak in the power spectrum of oscillation. Absolute magnitudes are obtained from the 2MASS $K_s$ band and the Gaia DR2 parallaxes. Our results follow. (i) Substantial mass loss sets in at pulsation periods above $\sim$60 and $\sim$100 days, corresponding to Asymptotic-Giant-Branch stars at the base of the period-luminosity sequences C$'$ and C. (ii) The mass-loss rate starts to rapidly increase in semiregulars for which the luminosity is just above the Red-Giant-Branch tip and gradually plateaus to a level similar to that of Miras. (iii) The mass-loss rates in Miras do not depend on luminosity, consistent with pulsation-enhanced dust-driven winds. (iv) The accumulated mass loss on the Red Giant Branch consistent with asteroseismic predictions reduces the masses of red-clump stars by $6.3$%, less than the typical uncertainty on their asteroseismic masses. Thus mass loss is currently not a limitation of stellar age estimates for galactic archaeology studies.

Automated approach to measure stellar inclinations: validation through large-scale measurements on the red giant branch

C. Gehan, B. Mosser, E. Michel, M. S. Cunha.
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Measuring stellar inclinations is fundamental to understand planetary formation and dynamics as well as physical conditions during star formation. Oscillation spectra of red giant stars exhibit mixed modes that have both a gravity component from the radiative interior and a pressure component from the convective envelope. Gravity-dominated (g-m) mixed modes split by rotation are well separated inside frequency spectra, making possible accurate measurements of stellar inclinations.
This work aims at developing an automated and general approach to measure stellar inclinations, that can be applied to any solar-type pulsator for which oscillation modes are identified, and at validating it using red giant branch stars observed by Kepler.
The stellar inclination impacts the visibility of oscillation modes with azimuthal orders $m=\lbrace -1, 0, +1 \rbrace$. We use the mean height-to-background ratio of dipole mixed modes with different azimuthal orders to measure stellar inclinations. The underlying statistical distribution of inclinations is recovered in an unbiased way using a probability density function for the stellar inclination angle.
We derive stellar inclination measurements for 1139 stars on the red giant branch, for which Gehan et al. (2018) have identified the azimuthal order of dipole g-m mixed modes. Raw measured inclinations exhibit strong deviation with respect to isotropy which is expected for random inclinations over the sky. When taking uncertainties into account, the reconstructed distribution of inclinations actually follows the expected isotropic distribution of the rotational axis.
This work highlights the biases that affect inclination measurements and provides the way to infer their underlying statistical distribution. When the star is seen either pole-on or equator-on, measurements are challenging and result in a biased distribution. Correcting biases that appear at the low- and high inclination regimes allows us to recover the underlying inclination distribution.

Testing the intrinsic scatter of the asteroseismic scaling relations with Kepler red giants

Yaguang Li, Timothy R. Bedding, Dennis Stello, Sanjib Sharma, Daniel Huber and, Simon J. Murphy.
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Asteroseismic scaling relations are often used to derive stellar masses and radii, particulaly for stellar, exoplanet, and Galactic studies. It is therefore important that their precisions are known. Here we measure the intrinsic scatter of the underlying seismic scaling relations for $\Delta\nu$ and $\nu_{\rm max}$, using two sharp features that are formed in the H-R diagram (or related diagrams) by the red giant populations. These features are the edge near the zero-age core-helium-burning phase, and the strong clustering of stars at the so-called red giant branch bump. The broadening of those features is determined by factors including the intrinsic scatter of the scaling relations themselves, and therefore it is capable of imposing constraints on them. We modelled Kepler stars with a Galaxia synthetic population, upon which we applied the intrinsic scatter of the scaling relations to match the degree of sharpness seen in the observation. We found that the random errors from measuring $\Delta\nu$ and $\nu_{\rm max}$ provide the dominating scatter that blurs the features. As a consequence, we conclude that the scaling relations have intrinsic scatter of $\sim0.5\%$ ($\Delta\nu$), $\sim1.1\%$ ($\nu_{\rm max}$), $\sim1.7\%$ (mass) and $\sim0.4\%$ (radius), for the SYD pipeline measured $\Delta\nu$ and $\nu_{\rm max}$. This confirms that the scaling relations are very powerful tools. In addition, we show that standard evolution models fail to predict some of the structures in the observed population of both the HeB and RGB stars. Further stellar model improvements are needed to reproduce the exact distributions.

On the first dSct–roAp hybrid pulsator and the stability of p and g modes in chemically peculiar A/F stars

Simon J. Murphy, Hideyuki Saio, Masahide Takada-Hidai, Donald W. Kurtz, Hiromoto Shibahashi, Masao Takata, Daniel R. Hey.
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Modelling Kepler Red Giants in Eclipsing Binaries: Calibrating the Mixing-Length Parameter with Asteroseismology

Tanda Li, Timothy R. Bedding, Daniel Huber, Warrick H. Ball, Dennis Stello, Simon J. Murphy, Joss Bland-Hawthorn.
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Stellar models rely on a number of free parameters. High-quality observations of eclipsing binary stars observed by Kepler offer a great opportunity to calibrate model parameters for evolved stars. Our study focuses on six Kepler red giants with the goal of calibrating the mixing-length parameter of convection as well as the asteroseismic surface term in models. We introduce a new method to improve the identification of oscillation modes which exploits theoretical frequencies to guide the mode identification ('peak-bagging') stage of the data analysis. Our results indicate that the convective mixing-length parameter ($\alpha$) is $\approx$14% larger for red giants than for the Sun, in agreement with recent results from modelling the APOGEE stars. We found that the asteroseismic surface term (i.e. the frequency offset between the observed and predicted modes) correlates with stellar parameters ($T_{\rm{eff}}$, $\log g$) and the mixing-length parameter. This frequency offset generally decreases as giants evolve. The two coefficients $a_{-1}$ and $a_3$ for the inverse and cubic terms that have been used to describe the surface term correction are found to correlate linearly. The effect of the surface term is also seen in the p-g mixed modes, however, established methods for correcting the effect are not able to properly correct the g-dominated modes in late evolved stars.

Surface rotation of Kepler red giant stars

T. Ceillier, J. Tayar, S. Mathur, D. Salabert, R. A. García, D. Stello, M. H. Pinsonneault, J. van Saders, P. G. Beck, S. Bloemen.
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The long and continuous photometric observations collected by the Kepler satellite of a large number of stars allows the study of the surface rotation and activity variability of thousands of field stars. Such information complements the asteroseismic measurements that constrain the interiors of stars and provides good calibration possibilities for the age-rotation-activity relations. Here, we study the light curves of a large number of red giant stars observed by the Kepler satellite to identify the ones exhibiting surface modulations due to the presence of star spots crossing the visible surface of the star and determine their rotational periods. We use optimized corrections to treat the Kepler data to retrieve the intrinsic modulations present in these light curves. Two different methods based on a wavelet decomposition and on the autocorrelation function of the light curve were then used to get estimates of the rotation period of each star. We also present a new tool which is a combination of the two previous methods, called Composite Spectrum. The results of these various methods are then compared to identify the stars showing clear signs of surface rotation. Out of a sample of 17, 377 red giants, we isolate 361 with a validated rotation rate. This represents 2.08% of our sample, which is consistent with the expectations from spectroscopic measurements. Among the 4881 intermediate mass stars ($M>2M_\odot$), we find a smaller rate of rapid rotators than expected, 1.92%, suggesting enhanced loss or differential rotation in those stars. Finally, we find that 15% of the 575 low-mass clump stars ($M<1.1M_\odot$) are rotating rapidly, which is indicative of a recent interaction.

Multi-technique investigation of the binary fraction among A-F type candidate hybrid variable stars discovered by Kepler

P. Lampens, \and, Y. Frémat, \and, L. Vermeylen, \and, Á. Sódor, \and, M. Skarka, \and, P. De Cat, \and, Zs. Bognár, et al.\.
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Context. Hundreds of candidate hybrid pulsators of intermediate type A-F have been revealed by the recent space missions. Hybrid pulsators offer the advantage to study the full stellar interiors, where both low-order p- and high-order g-modes are simultaneously excited. The true hybrid stars must be identified since other processes, related to stellar multiplicity or rotation, might also explain the presence of (some) low frequencies observed in the periodograms of these pulsating stars. \
Aims. We measured the radial velocities of 50 candidate $\delta$ Scuti - $\gamma$ Doradus hybrid stars from the Kepler mission with the Hermes and Ace spectrographs over a time span of months to years. We aim to derive the fraction of binary and multiple systems, to provide an independent determination of the atmospheric properties and v sini, and to identify the (probable) physical cause of the low frequencies. \
Methods. We computed 1-D cross-correlation functions (CCFs) in order to find the best set of model parameters in terms of the number of components, spectral type(s) and v sini for each target. Radial velocities were measured from spectrum synthesis and by using a 2-D cross-correlation technique in the case of double- and triple-lined systems. Fundamental parameters were determined by fitting (in casu composite) synthetic spectra to the normalised median spectra corrected for the appropriate Doppler shifts. \
Results. We report on the analysis of 478 high-resolution Hermes and 41 Ace spectra of A/F-type candidate hybrid pulsating stars from the Kepler field. We determined their radial velocities, projected rotational velocities, atmospheric properties and classified our targets based on the shape of the CCFs and the temporal behaviour of the radial velocities. We derived orbital solutions for seven systems.Three long-period preliminary orbital solutions are confirmed by a photometric time-delay analysis. Finally, we determined a global multiplicity fraction of 27% in our sample of candidate hybrid pulsators. \

Deep Learning Classification in Asteroseismology

Marc Hon, Dennis Stello, Jie Yu.
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In the power spectra of oscillating red giants, there are visually distinct features defining stars ascending the red giant branch from those that have commenced helium core burning. We train a one-dimensional convolutional neural network by supervised learning to automatically learn these visual features from images of folded oscillation spectra. By training and testing on Kepler red giants, we achieve an accuracy of up to 99% in separating helium-burning red giants from those ascending the red giant branch. The convolutional neural network additionally shows capability in accurately predicting the evolutionary states of 5379 previously unclassified Kepler red giants, by which we now have greatly increased the number of classified stars.

NGC 6819: testing the asteroseismic mass scale, mass loss, and evidence for products of non-standard evolution

R. Handberg, K. F. Brogaard, A. Miglio, D. Bossini, Y. Elsworth, D. Slumstrup, G. R. Davies, W. J. Chaplin.
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We present an extensive peakbagging effort on Kepler light curves of $\sim$50 red giant stars in the open star cluster NGC 6819. By employing sophisticated pre-processing of the time series and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques we extracted individual frequencies, heights and linewidths for hundreds of oscillation modes in the sample of stars.
We show that the ‘average’ asteroseismic parameter $\delta\nu_{02}$, derived from these, can be used to distinguish the stellar evolutionary state between the red giant branch (RGB) stars and red clump (RC) stars.
The masses and radii of the giants are estimated using asteroseismic scaling relations, both empirically corrected to obtain self-consistency as well as agreement with independent measures of distance and age, and, alternatively, using updated theoretical corrections. Remarkable agreement is found, allowing the evolutionary state of the giants to be determined exclusively from the empirical correction to the scaling relations. We find a mean mass of the RGB stars and RC stars in NGC 6819 to be $1.61\pm0.02\,\mathrm{M}_\odot$ and $1.64\pm0.02\,\mathrm{M}_\odot$, respectively. The difference $\Delta M=-0.03\pm0.01\,\mathrm{M}_\odot$ is almost insensitive to systematics, suggesting very little RGB mass loss, if any.
Stars that are outliers relative to the ensemble reveal overmassive members that likely evolved via mass-transfer in a blue straggler phase. We also suggest that KIC 4937011, a low-mass Li-rich giant previously studied in the literature, is a cluster member in the RC phase that experienced very high mass-loss during its evolution. Such over- and undermassive stars need to be considered when studying field giants, since the true age of such stars cannot be known and there is currently no way to distinguish them from normal stars.

Anomalies in the Kepler Asteroseismic Legacy Project Data A re-analysis of 16 Cyg A&B, KIC8379927 and 6 solar-like stars

Ian W Roxburgh.
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I compare values of the frequencies, separation ratios, errors and covariance matrices from a new analysis of 9 solar-like stars with the Legacy project values reported by Lund et al and, for 16Cyg A&B and KIC8379927, with values derived by Davies et al. There is good agreement between my results and Davies's for these 3 stars, but no such agreement with the Legacy project results. My frequencies differ from the Legacy values, there are inconsistencies in the Legacy frequency covariance matrices which are not positive definite, and the Legacy errors on separation ratios are up to 40 times larger than mine and the values and upper limits derived from the Legacy frequency covariances. There are similar anomalies for 6 other solar-like stars: frequencies and separation ratio errors disagree and 2 have non positive definite covariance matrices. There are inconsistencies in the covariance matrices of 27 the 66 stars in the full Legacy set and problems with the ratio errors for the vast majority of these stars

Metallicity effect on stellar granulation detected from oscillating red giants in Open Clusters

E. Corsaro, S. Mathur, R. A. García, P. Gaulme, M. Pinsonneault, K. Stassun, D. Stello, J. Tayar, R. Trampedach, C. Jiang, C. Nitschelm, D. Salabert.
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Context. The effect of metallicity on the granulation activity in stars, and hence on the convective motions in general, is still poorly understood. Available spectroscopic parameters from the updated APOGEE-Kepler catalog, coupled with high-precision photometric observations from NASA's Kepler mission spanning more than four years of observation, make oscillating red giant stars in open clusters crucial testbeds.
Aims. We determine the role of metallicity on the stellar granulation activity by discriminating its effect from that of different stellar properties such as surface gravity, mass, and temperature. We analyze 60 known red giant stars belonging to the open clusters NGC 6791, NGC 6819, and NGC 6811, spanning a metallicity range from [Fe/H] $\simeq -0.09$ to $0.32$. The parameters describing the granulation activity of these stars and their frequency of maximum oscillation power, $\nu_\mathrm{max}$, are studied while taking into account different masses, metallicities, and stellar evolutionary stages. We derive new scaling relations for the granulation activity, re-calibrate existing ones, and identify the best scaling relations from the available set of observations.
Methods. We adopt the Bayesian code DIAMONDS for the analysis of the background signal in the Fourier spectra of the stars. We perform a Bayesian parameter estimation and model comparison to test the different model hypotheses proposed in this work and in the literature.
Results. Metallicity causes a statistically significant change in the amplitude of the granulation activity, with a dependency stronger than that induced by both stellar mass and surface gravity. We also find that the metallicity has a significant impact on the corresponding time scales of the phenomenon. The effect of metallicity on the time scale is stronger than that of mass.
Conclusions. A higher metallicity increases the amplitude of granulation and meso-granulation signals and slows down their characteristic time scales toward longer periods. The trend in amplitude is in qualitative agreement with predictions from existing 3D hydrodynamical simulations of stellar atmospheres from main sequence to red giant stars. We confirm that the granulation activity is not sensitive to changes in the stellar core and that it only depends on the atmospheric parameters of stars.

Asteroseismology and Gaia: Testing Scaling Relations Using 2200 Kepler Stars with TGAS Parallaxes

Daniel Huber, Joel Zinn, Mathias Bojsen-Hansen, Marc Pinsonneault, Aldo Serenelli, Victor Silva Aguirre, Christian Sahlholdt, Keivan Stassun, Dennis Stello, Jamie Tayar, Fabienne Bastien, Timothy R. Bedding, Lars A. Buchhave, William J. Chaplin, Guy R. Davies, Rafael A. Garcia, David W. Latham and 3 coauthors.
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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 been partially overestimated for stars beyond 100pc, and can be in part compensated by adopting a hotter Teff 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  10% or better for stars between  0.8-8Rsun. We find no significant offset for main-sequence (< 1.5Rsun) and low-luminosity RGB stars ( 3–8Rsun), but seismic radii appear to be systematically underestimated by  5% for subgiants ( 1.5-3Rsun). We find no systematic errors as a function of metallicity between [Fe/H]   -0.8 to +0.4 dex, and show tentative evidence that corrections to the scaling relation for the large frequency separation (Dnu) improve the agreement with TGAS for RGB stars. Finally, we demonstrate that beyond  3kpc 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.

Near-degeneracy effects on the frequencies of rotationally-split mixed modes in red giants

S. Deheuvels, R. M. Ouazzani, S. Basu.
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The Kepler space mission has made it possible to measure the rotational splittings of mixed modes in red giants, thereby providing an unprecedented opportunity to probe the internal rotation of these stars. Asymmetries have been detected in the rotational multiplets of several red giants. This is unexpected since all the red giants whose rotation have been measured thus far are found to rotate slowly, and low rotation, in principle, produces symmetrical multiplets. Our aim here is to explain these asymmetries and find a way of exploiting them to probe the internal rotation of red giants. We show that in the cases where asymmetrical multiplets were detected, near-degeneracy effects are expected to occur, because of the combined effects of rotation and mode mixing. Such effects have not been taken into account so far. By using both perturbative and non-perturbative approaches, we show that near-degeneracy effects produce multiplet asymmetries that are very similar to the observations. We then propose and validate a method based on the perturbative approach to probe the internal rotation of red giants using multiplet asymmetries. We successfully apply our method to the asymmetrical $l=2$ multiplets of the Kepler young red giant KIC7341231 and obtain precise estimates of its mean rotation in the core and the envelope. The observed asymmetries are reproduced with a good statistical agreement, which confirms that near-degeneracy effects are very likely the cause of the detected multiplet asymmetries. We expect near-degeneracy effects to be important for $l=2$ mixed modes all along the red giant branch (RGB). For $l=1$ modes, these effects can be neglected only at the base of the RGB. They must therefore be taken into account when interpreting rotational splittings and as shown here, they can bring valuable information about the internal rotation of red giants.

Beyond the Kepler/K2 bright limit with halo photometry: variability in the seven brightest members of the Pleiades

T. R. White, B. J. S. Pope, V. Antoci, P. I. Pápics, C. Aerts, D. R. Gies, K. Gordon, D. Huber, G. H. Schaefer, S. Aigrain, S. Albrecht, T. Barclay, G. Barentsen, P. G. Beck, T. R. Bedding, M. Fredslund Andersen, F. Grundahl and 6 coauthors.
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The most powerful tests of stellar models come from the brightest stars in the sky, for which complementary techniques, such as astrometry, asteroseismology, spectroscopy, and interferometry can be combined. The K2 Mission is providing a unique opportunity to obtain high-precision photometric time series for bright stars along the ecliptic. However, bright targets require a large number of pixels to capture the entirety of the stellar flux, and bandwidth restrictions limit the number and brightness of stars that can be observed. To overcome this, we have developed a new photometric technique, that we call halo photometry, to observe very bright stars using a limited number of pixels. Halo photometry is simple, fast and does not require extensive pixel allocation, and will allow us to use K2 and other photometric missions, such as TESS, to observe very bright stars for asteroseismology and to search for transiting exoplanets. We apply this method to the seven brightest stars in the Pleiades open cluster. Each star exhibits variability; six of the stars show what are most-likely slowly pulsating B-star (SPB) pulsations, with amplitudes ranging from 20 to 2000 ppm. For the star Maia, we demonstrate the utility of combining K2 photometry with spectroscopy and interferometry to show that it is not a ‘Maia variable’, and to establish that its variability is caused by rotational modulation of a large chemical spot on a 10 d time scale.

Characterizing solar-type stars from full-length Kepler data sets using the Asteroseismic Modeling Portal

O. L. Creevey, T. S. Metcalfe, M. Schultheis, D. Salabert, M. Bazot, F. Thévenin, S. Mathur, H. Xu, R. A. García.
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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, comprising planetary hosts, binaries, solar-analogs, active stars, and for validation purposes, the Sun. 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 (T$_{\rm eff}~\lesssim 6200$ K) or significantly more evolved ($\log g~\gtrsim 4.2$, $\langle \Delta \nu \rangle ~\gtrsim 80\mu$Hz) 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.

Kepler Observations of the Asteroseismic Binary HD 176465

T. R. White, O. Benomar, V. Silva Aguirre, W. H. Ball, T. R. Bedding, W. J. Chaplin, J. Christensen-Dalsgaard, R. A. Garcia, L. Gizon, D. Stello, S. Aigrain, H. M. Antia, T. Appourchaux, M. Bazot, T. L. Campante, O. L. Creevey, G. R. Davies and 17 coauthors.
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Binary star systems are important for understanding stellar structure and evolution, and are especially useful when oscillations can be detected and analysed with asteroseismology. However, only four systems are known in which solar-like oscillations are detected in both components. Here, we analyse the fifth such system, HD 176465, which was observed by Kepler. We carefully analysed the system's power spectrum to measure individual mode frequencies, adapting our methods where necessary to accommodate the fact that both stars oscillate in a similar frequency range. We also modelled the two stars independently by fitting stellar models to the frequencies and complementary spectroscopic parameters. We are able to cleanly separate the oscillation modes in both systems. The stellar models produce compatible ages and initial compositions for the stars, as is expected from their common and contemporaneous origin. Combining the individual ages, the system is about $3.0\pm0.5\,\mathrm{Gyr}$ old. The two components of HD 176465 are young physically-similar oscillating solar analogues, the first such system to be found, and provide important constraints for stellar evolution and asteroseismology.

Convective-core overshoot and suppression of oscillations: Constraints from red giants in NGC 6811

T. Arentoft, K. Brogaard, J. Jessen-Hansen, V. Silva Aguirre, H. Kjeldsen, J. R. Mosumgaard, E. L. Sandquist.
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Using data from the NASA spacecraft Kepler, we study solar-like oscillations in red-giant stars in the open cluster NGC 6811. We determine oscillation frequencies, frequency separations, period spacings of mixed modes and mode visibilities for eight cluster giants. The oscillation parameters show that these stars are helium-core-burning red giants. The eight stars form two groups with very different oscillation power spectra; the four stars with lowest $\Delta\nu$-values display rich sets of mixed $l=1$ modes, while this is not the case for the four stars with higher $\Delta\nu$. For the four stars with lowest $\Delta\nu$, we determine the asymptotic period spacing of the mixed modes, $\Delta$P, which together with the masses we derive for all eight stars suggest that they belong to the so-called secondary clump. Based on the global oscillation parameters, we present initial theoretical stellar modeling which indicate that we can constrain convective-core overshoot on the main sequence and in the helium-burning phase for these $\sim$2 M$_{\odot}$ stars. Finally, our results indicate less mode suppression than predicted by recent theories for magnetic suppression of certain oscillation modes in red giants.

Kepler sheds new and unprecedented light on the variability of a blue supergiant: gravity waves in the O9.5Iab star HD188209

Conny Aerts, Sergio Simon-Diaz, S. Bloemen, J. Debosscher, P. I. Pápics, S. Bryson, M. Still, E. Moravveji, M. H. Williamson, F. Grundahl, M. Fredslund Andersen, V. Antoci, P. L. Pallé, J. Christensen-Dalsgaard, T. M. Rogers.
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Context. Stellar evolution models are most uncertain for evolved massive stars. Asteroseismology based on high-precision uninterrupted space photometry has become a new way to test the outcome of stellar evolution theory and was recently applied to a multitude of stars, but not yet to massive evolved supergiants.
Aims. Our aim is to detect, analyse and interpret the photospheric and wind variability of the O9.5 Iab star HD188209 from Kepler space photometry and long-term high-resolution spectroscopy.
Methods. We used Kepler scattered-light photometry obtained by the nominal mission during 1460 d to deduce the photometric variability of this O-type supergiant. In addition, we assembled and analysed high-resolution high signal-to-noise spectroscopy taken with four spectrographs during some 1800 d to interpret the temporal spectroscopic variability of the star.
Results. The variability of this blue supergiant derived from the scattered-light space photometry is fully in agreement with the one found in the ground-based spectroscopy.We find significant low-frequency variability that is consistently detected in all spectral lines of HD188209. The photospheric variability propagates into the wind, where it has similar frequencies but slightly higher amplitudes.
Conclusions. The morphology of the frequency spectra derived from the long-term photometry and spectroscopy points towards a spectrum of travelling waves with frequency values in the range expected for an evolved O-type star. Convectively-driven internal gravity waves excited in the stellar interior offer the most plausible explanation of the detected variability.

Hybrid Î³ Doradus-Î´ Scuti Pulsators: New Insights into the Physics of the Oscillations from Kepler Observations

A. GrigahcÃ¨ne, V. Antoci, L. Balona, G. Catanzaro, J. DaszyÅ„ska-Daszkiewicz, J. A. Guzik, G. Handler, G. Houdek, D. W. Kurtz, M. Marconi, M. J. P. F. G. Monteiro, A. Moya, V. Ripepi, J.-C. SuÃ¡rez, K. Uytterhoeven, W. J. Borucki, T. M. Brown and 25 coauthors.
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