The relation between Δν and νmax for solar-like oscillations

Establishing relations between global stellar parameters and asteroseismic quantities can help improve our understanding of stellar astrophysics and facilitate the interpretation of observations. We present an observed relation between the large frequency separation, Delta nu, and the frequency of maximum power, nu(max). We find that Delta nu proportional to nu(0.77)(max), allowing prediction of Delta nu to about 15 per cent given nu(max). Our result is further supported by established scaling relations for Delta nu and nu(max) and by extended stellar model calculations, which confirm that Delta nu can be estimated using this relation for basically any star showing solar-like oscillations in the investigated range (0.5 <M/M-circle dot <4.0).