ALBERT

Description: We explore the detection limits of the phase modulation (PM) method of finding binary systems among multiperiodic pulsating stars. The method is an attractive way of finding non-transiting planets in the habitable zones of intermediate-mass stars, whose rapid rotation inhibits detections via the radial velocity (RV) method. While oscillation amplitudes of a few mmag are required to find planets, many  Scuti stars have these amplitudes. In suboptimal cases where the signal to noise of the oscillations is lower, low-mass brown dwarfs (~13 M Jup ) are detectable at orbital periods longer than about 1 yr, and the lowest mass main-sequence stars (0.1–0.2 M ) are detectable at all orbital periods where the PM method can be applied. We use purpose-written Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) software for the calculation of the PM orbits, which offers robust uncertainties for comparison with RV solutions. Using Kepler data and ground-based RVs, we verify that these two methods are in agreement, even at short orbital periods where the PM method undersamples the orbit. We develop new theory to account for the undersampling of the time delays, which is also necessary for the inclusion of RVs as observational data in the MCMC software. We show that combining RVs with time delays substantially refines the orbits because of the complementarity of working in both the spatial (PM) and velocity (RV) domains simultaneously. Software outputs were tested through an extensive hare-and-hounds exercise, covering a wide range of orbital configurations including binaries containing two pulsators.

Description: Detecting binary stars in photometric time series is traditionally done by measuring eclipses. This requires the orbital plane to be aligned with the observer. A new method without that requirement uses stellar oscillations to measure delays in the light arrival time and has been successfully applied to Scuti stars. However, application to other types of stars has not been explored. To investigate this, we simulated light curves with a range of input parameters. We find a correlation between the signal to noise of the pulsation modes and the time delay required to detect binary motion. The detectability of the binarity in the simulations and in real, Kepler data show strong agreement, hence, we describe the factors that have prevented this method from discovering binary companions to stars belonging to various classes of pulsating stars.

Description: There are many Slowly Pulsating B (SPB) stars and Dor stars in the Kepler mission data set. The light curves of these pulsating stars have been classified phenomenologically into stars with symmetric light curves and with asymmetric light curves. In the same effective temperature ranges as the Dor and SPB stars, there are variable stars with downward light curves that have been conjectured to be caused by spots. Among these phenomenological classes of stars, some show ‘frequency groups’ in their amplitude spectra that have not previously been understood. While it has been recognized that non-linear pulsation gives rise to combination frequencies in a Fourier description of the light curves of these stars, such combination frequencies have been considered to be a only a minor constituent of the amplitude spectra. In this paper, we unify the Fourier description of the light curves of these groups of stars, showing that many of them can be understood in terms of only a few base frequencies, which we attribute to g-mode pulsations, and combination frequencies, where sometimes a very large number of combination frequencies dominate the amplitude spectra. The frequency groups seen in these stars are thus tremendously simplified. We show observationally that the combination frequencies can have amplitudes greater than the base frequency amplitudes, and we show theoretically how this arises. Thus for some Dor and SPB stars, combination frequencies can have the highest observed amplitudes. Among the B stars are pulsating Be stars that show emission lines in their spectra from occasional ejection of material into a circumstellar disc. Our analysis gives strong support to the understanding of these pulsating Be stars as rapidly rotating SPB stars, explained entirely by g-mode pulsations.

Description: Kepler has revolutionized our understanding of both exoplanets and their host stars. Asteroseismology is a valuable tool in the characterization of stars and Kepler is an excellent observing facility to perform asteroseismology. Here we select a sample of 35 Kepler solar-type stars which host transiting exoplanets (or planet candidates) with detected solar-like oscillations. Using available Kepler short cadence data up to Quarter 16 we create power spectra optimized for asteroseismology of solar-type stars. We identify modes of oscillation and estimate mode frequencies by ‘peak bagging’ using a Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo framework. In addition, we expand the methodology of quality assurance using a Bayesian unsupervised machine learning approach. We report the measured frequencies of the modes of oscillation for all 35 stars and frequency ratios commonly used in detailed asteroseismic modelling. Due to the high correlations associated with frequency ratios we report the covariance matrix of all frequencies measured and frequency ratios calculated. These frequencies, frequency ratios, and covariance matrices can be used to obtain tight constraint on the fundamental parameters of these planet-hosting stars.

Description: High-precision time series photometry with the Kepler satellite has been crucial to our understanding both of exoplanets, and via asteroseismology, of stellar physics. After the failure of two reaction wheels, the Kepler satellite has been repurposed as Kepler -2 (K2), observing fields close to the ecliptic plane. As these fields contain many more bright stars than the original Kepler field, K2 provides an unprecedented opportunity to study nearby objects amenable to detailed follow-up with ground-based instruments. Due to bandwidth constraints, only a small fraction of pixels can be downloaded, with the result that most bright stars which saturate the detector are not observed. We show that engineering data acquired for photometric calibration, consisting of collateral ‘smear’ measurements, can be used to reconstruct light curves for bright targets not otherwise observable with Kepler /K2. Here we present some examples from Kepler Quarter 6 and K2 Campaign 3, including the Scuti variables HD 178875 and 70 Aqr, and the red giant HR 8500 displaying solar-like oscillations. We compare aperture and smear photometry where possible, and also study targets not previously observed. These encouraging results suggest this new method can be applied to most Kepler and K2 fields.

Description: We analysed solar-like oscillations in 1523 Kepler red giants which have previously been misclassified as subgiants, with predicted max values [based on the Kepler Input Catalogue (KIC)] between 280 and 700 μHz. We report the discovery of 626 new oscillating red giants in our sample, in addition to 897 oscillators that were previously characterized by Hekker et al. from one quarter of Kepler data. Our sample increases the known number of oscillating low-luminosity red giants by 26 per cent (up to ~1900 stars). About three quarters of our sample are classified as ascending red giant branch stars, while the remainder are red-clump stars. A novel scheme was applied to determine for 108 stars with max close to the Nyquist frequency (387 μHz 〉 max 〉 387 μHz). Additionally, we identified 47 stars oscillating in the super-Nyquist frequency regime, up to 387 μHz, using long-cadence light curves. We show that the misclassifications are most likely due to large uncertainties in KIC surface gravities, and do not result from the absence of broad-band colours or from different physical properties such as reddening, spatial distribution, mass or metallicity. The sample will be valuable to study oscillations in low-luminosity red giants and to characterize planet candidates around those stars.

Description: We identify stars in the  Sct instability strip that do not pulsate in p modes at the 50-μmag limit, using Kepler data. Spectral classification and abundance analyses from high-resolution spectroscopy allow us to identify chemically peculiar stars, in which the absence of pulsations is not surprising. The remaining stars are chemically normal, yet they are not  Sct stars. Their lack of observed p modes cannot be explained through any known mechanism. However, they are mostly distributed around the edges of the  Sct instability strip, which allows for the possibility that they actually lie outside the strip once the uncertainties are taken into account. We investigated the possibility that the non-pulsators inside the instability strip could be unresolved binary systems, having components that both lie outside the instability strip. If misinterpreted as single stars, we found that such binaries could generate temperature discrepancies of ~300 K – larger than the spectroscopic uncertainties, and fully consistent with the observations. After these considerations, there remains one chemically normal non-pulsator that lies in the middle of the instability strip. This star is a challenge to pulsation theory. However, its existence as the only known star of its kind indicates that such stars are rare. We conclude that the  Sct instability strip is pure, unless pulsation is shut down by diffusion or another mechanism, which could be interaction with a binary companion.

Description: We use 4 yr of Kepler photometry to study the non-eclipsing spectroscopic binary KIC 10080943. We find both components to be  Doradus/ Scuti hybrids, which pulsate in both p and g modes. We present an analysis of the g modes, which is complicated by the fact that the two sets of = 1 modes partially overlap in the frequency spectrum. Nevertheless, it is possible to disentangle them by identifying rotationally split doublets from one component and triplets from the other. The identification is helped by the presence of additive combination frequencies in the spectrum that involve the doublets but not the triplets. The rotational splittings of the multiplets imply core rotation periods of about 11 and 7 d in the two stars. One of the stars also shows evidence of = 2 modes.

Description: We have found a rotationally split series of core g-mode triplets and surface p-mode multiplets in a main-sequence F star, KIC 9244992. Comparison with models shows that the star has a mass of about 1.45 M , and is at an advanced stage of main-sequence evolution in which the central hydrogen abundance mass fraction is reduced to about 0.1. This is the second case, following KIC 11145123, of an asteroseismic determination of the rotation of the deep core and surface of an A-F main-sequence star. We have found, essentially model independently, that the rotation near the surface, obtained from p-mode splittings, is 66 d, slightly slower than the rotation of 64 d in the core, measured by g-mode splittings. KIC 9244992 is similar to KIC 11145123 in that both are near the end of main-sequence stage with very slow and nearly uniform rotation. This indicates the angular momentum transport in the interior of an A-F star during the main-sequence stage is much stronger than that expected from standard theoretical formulations.

Description: We present a method for finding binaries among pulsating stars that were observed by the Kepler Mission. We use entire 4 yr light curves to accurately measure the frequencies of the strongest pulsation modes, and then track the pulsation phases at those frequencies in 10-d segments. This produces a series of time-delay measurements in which binarity is apparent as a periodic modulation whose amplitude gives the projected light travel time across the orbit. Fourier analysis of this time-delay curve provides the parameters of the orbit, including the period, eccentricity, angle of ascending node, and time of periastron passage. Differentiating the time-delay curve yields the full radial-velocity curve directly from the Kepler photometry, without the need for spectroscopy. We show examples with scuti stars having large numbers of pulsation modes, including one system in which both components of the binary are pulsating. The method is straightforward to automate, thus radial velocity curves can be derived for hundreds of non-eclipsing binary stars from Kepler photometry alone.