Yvonne P. Elsworth

Gravity modes as a way to distinguish between hydrogen- and helium-burning red giant stars

Red giants are evolved stars that have exhausted the supply of hydrogen in their cores and instead burn hydrogen in a surrounding shell. Once a red giant is sufficiently evolved, the helium in the core also undergoes fusion. Outstanding issues in our understanding of red giants include uncertainties in the amount of mass lost at the surface before helium ignition and the amount of internal mixing from rotation and other processes. Progress is hampered by our inability to distinguish between red giants burning helium in the core and those still only burning hydrogen in a shell. Asteroseismology offers a way forward, being a powerful tool for probing the internal structures of stars using their natural oscillation frequencies. Here we report observations of gravity-mode period spacings in red giants that permit a distinction between evolutionary stages to be made. We use high-precision photometry obtained by the Kepler spacecraft over more than a year to measure oscillations in several hundred red giants. We find many stars whose dipole modes show sequences with approximately regular period spacings. These stars fall into two clear groups, allowing us to distinguish unambiguously between hydrogen-shell-burning stars (period spacing mostly ∼50u2009seconds) and those that are also burning helium (period spacing ∼100 to 300 seconds).

Solar p-mode frequencies and their dependence on solar-activity - recent results from the BISON network

We present here high-accuracy determinations of the frequencies of low-l solar p-modes and their solar-cycle dependence. The data were obtained using the Birmingham network of solar spectrometers (BISON). The precision of the measurements is discussed. Our previously published results of a significant frequency shift between solar minimum and solar maximum, apparently independent of l and similar to that found by other workers for intermediate-l modes, is confirmed and extended. This suggests that at most only a small fraction of the variation is due to the solar core. Sets of frequencies at high and low solar activity, and an average corrected for solar-activity effects, are presented. There is now evidence that the solar-activity dependence of the frequencies varies across the 5 minute spectrum.

Hot super-Earths stripped by their host stars

Simulations predict that hot super-Earth sized exoplanets can have their envelopes stripped by photoevaporation, which would present itself as a lack of these exoplanets. However, this absence in the exoplanet population has escaped a firm detection. Here we demonstrate, using asteroseismology on a sample of exoplanets and exoplanet candidates observed during the Kepler mission that, while there is an abundance of super-Earth sized exoplanets with low incident fluxes, none are found with high incident fluxes. We do not find any exoplanets with radii between 2.2 and 3.8 Earth radii with incident flux above 650 times the incident flux on Earth. This gap in the population of exoplanets is explained by evaporation of volatile elements and thus supports the predictions. The confirmation of a hot-super-Earth desert caused by evaporation will add an important constraint on simulations of planetary systems, since they must be able to reproduce the dearth of close-in super-Earths.

Asteroseismology of Solar-Type Stars with K2: Detection of Oscillations in C1 Data

We present the first detections by the NASA K2 mission of oscillations in solar-type stars, using short-cadence data collected during K2 Campaign 1 (C1). We understand the asteroseismic detection thresholds for C1-like levels of photometric performance, and we can detect oscillations in subgiants having dominant oscillation frequencies around 1000 μHz. Changes to the operation of the fine-guidance sensors are expected to give significant improvements in the high-frequency performance from C3 onwards. A reduction in the excess high-frequency noise by a factor of 2.5 in amplitude would bring main-sequence stars with dominant oscillation frequencies as high as 2500 μHz into play as potential asteroseismic targets for K2.

Spin-Orbit Alignment of Exoplanet Systems: Ensemble Analysis Using Asteroseismology

The angle

THE K2 GALACTIC ARCHAEOLOGY PROGRAM DATA RELEASE I: ASTEROSEISMIC RESULTS FROM CAMPAIGN 1

psi

The 160 minute solar oscillation - an artifact?

between a planets orbital axis and the spin axis of its parent star is an important diagnostic of planet formation, migration, and tidal evolution. We seek empirical constraints on

Preparation of Kepler light curves for asteroseismic analyses

psi

Preparation of Kepler lightcurves for asteroseismic analyses

by measuring the stellar inclination

The relation between and max for solar-like oscillations

i_{rm s}