Oscillating red giants observed during campaign 1 of the Kepler K2 mission: New prospects for galactic archaeology

Dennis Stello, Daniel Huber, Sanjib Sharma, Jennifer Johnson, Mikkel N. Lund, Rasmus Handberg, Derek L. Buzasi, Victor Silva Aguirre, William J. Chaplin, Andrea Miglio, Marc Pinsonneault, Sarbani Basu, Tim R. Bedding, Joss Bland-hawthorn, Luca Casagrande, Guy Davies, Yvonne Elsworth, Rafael A. Garcia, Savita Mathur, Maria Pia Di MauroBenoit Mosser, Donald P. Schneider, Aldo Serenelli, Marica Valentini

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

66 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

NASA’s re-purposed Kepler mission—dubbed K2—has brought new scientific opportunities that were not anticipated for the original Kepler mission. One science goal that makes optimal use of K2ʼs capabilities, in particular its 360° ecliptic field of view, is galactic archaeology—the study of the evolution of the Galaxy from the fossil stellar record. The thrust of this research is to exploit high-precision, time-resolved photometry from K2 in order to detect oscillations in red giant stars. This asteroseismic information can provide estimates of stellar radius (hence distance), mass, and age of vast numbers of stars across the Galaxy. Here we present the initial analysis of a subset of red giants, observed toward the north galactic gap, during the mission’s first full science campaign. We investigate the feasibility of using K2 data for detecting oscillations in red giants that span a range in apparent magnitude and evolutionary state (hence intrinsic luminosity). We demonstrate that oscillations are detectable for
essentially all cool giants within the log g range ∼1.9–3.2. Our detection is complete down to Kp ~ 14.5, which results in a seismic sample with little or no detection bias. This sample is ideally suited to stellar population studies
that seek to investigate potential shortcomings of contemporary Galaxy models.
Original languageEnglish
Article numberL3
Number of pages6
JournalThe Astrophysical Journal
Volume809
Issue number1
Early online date4 Aug 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 10 Aug 2015

Keywords

  • Galaxy: evolution
  • Galaxy: stellar content
  • Galaxy: structure
  • stars: fundamental parameters
  • stars: oscillations

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