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Although stellar radii from asteroseismic scaling relations agree at the per cent level with independent estimates for main sequence and most first-ascent red giant branch (RGB) stars, the scaling relations over-predict radii at the tens of per cent level for the most luminous stars ($R \gtrsim 30 \, \mathrm{R}_{\odot }$). These evolved stars have significantly superadiabatic envelopes, and the extent of these regions increase with increasing radius. However, adiabaticity is assumed in the theoretical derivation of the scaling relations as well as in corrections to the large frequency separation. Here, we show that a part of the scaling relation radius inflation may arise from this assumption of adiabaticity. With a new reduction of Kepler asteroseismic data, we find that scaling relation radii and Gaia radii agree to within at least 2 per cent for stars with $R \lesssim 30\, \mathrm{R}_{\odot }$, when treated under the adiabatic assumption. The accuracy of scaling relation radii for stars with $50\, \mathrm{R}_{\odot }\lesssim R \lesssim 100\, \mathrm{R}_{\odot }$, however, is not better than $10~{{\ \rm per \, cent}}-15~{{\ \rm per \, cent}}$ using adiabatic large frequency separation corrections. We find that up to one third of this disagreement for stars with $R \approx 100\, \mathrm{R}_{\odot }$ could be caused by the adiabatic assumption, and that this adiabatic error increases with radius to reach 10 per cent at the tip of the RGB. We demonstrate that, unlike the solar case, the superadiabatic gradient remains large very deep in luminous stars. A large fraction of the acoustic cavity is also in the optically thin atmosphere. The observed discrepancies may therefore reflect the simplified treatment of convection and atmospheres.

 

K2 was a community-driven NASA mission where all targets were proposed through guest observer programmes. Here we provide an overview of one of the largest of these endeavours, the K2 Galactic Archaeology Programme (K2GAP), with about 25 per cent of the observed targets being allocated to this programme. K2GAP provides asteroseismic parameters for about 23 000 giant stars across the Galaxy, which together with spectroscopic stellar parameters can give age and masses of stars. We discuss in detail the target selection procedure and provide a python program that implements the selection function (github.com/sanjibs/k2gap). Broadly speaking, the targets were selected on 2MASS colour J − Ks > 0.5, with finely tuned adjustments for each campaign. We discuss the detection completeness of the asteroseismic parameters νmax and Δν. About 14 per cent of giants were found to miss νmax detections and it was difficult to detect Δν for RC stars. Making use of the selection function, we compare the observed distribution of asteroseismic masses to theoretical predictions. The median asteroseismic mass is higher by about 4 per cent compared to predictions. We provide a selection-function-matched mock catalogue of stars based on a synthetic model of the Galaxy for the community to use in subsequent analyses of the K2GAP data set (physics.usyd.edu.au/k2gap/download/).

 

ABSTRACT Precise asteroseismic parameters can be used 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 (νmax) and the frequency separation between overtone modes (Δν) from the power spectra of red giants. However, filtering through the results requires 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 Δν by combining multiple features from the visual Δν vetting process. Our classifier is able to analyse large numbers of stars, determining whether their measured Δν are reliable and thus delivering clean samples of oscillating stars with minimal effort. Our classifier is independent of the method used to obtain νmax and Δν, and therefore can be applied as a final step to any such method. Tests of our classifier’s performance on manually vetted Δν measurements reach an accuracy of 95 per cent. We apply the method to giants observed by the K2 Galactic Archaeology Program and find that our results retain stars with astrophysical oscillation parameters consistent with the parameter distributions already defined by well-characterized Kepler red giants. 

In this work, we combine information from solar-like oscillations, high-resolution spectroscopy, and Gaia astrometry to derive stellar ages, chemical abundances, and kinematics for a group of seven metal-poor red giants and characterize them in a multidimensional chrono-chemo-dynamical space. Chemical abundance ratios were derived through classical spectroscopic analysis employing 1D LTE atmospheres on Keck/HIRES spectra. Stellar ages, masses, and radii were calculated with grid-based modelling, taking advantage of availability of asteroseismic information from Kepler. The dynamical properties were determined with galpy using Gaia EDR3 astrometric solutions. Our results suggest that underestimated parallax errors make the effect of Gaia parallaxes more important than different choices of model grid or – in the case of stars ascending the red giant branch – mass-loss prescription. Two of the stars in this study are identified as potentially evolved halo blue stragglers. Four objects are likely members of the accreted Milky Way halo, and their possible relationship with known accretion events is discussed.

 

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission searches for new exoplanets. The observing strategy of TESS results in high-precision photometry of millions of stars across the sky, allowing for detailed asteroseismic studies of individual systems. In this work, we present a detailed asteroseismic analysis of the giant star HD 76920 hosting a highly eccentric giant planet (e= 0.878) with an orbital period of 415 days, using five sectors of TESS light curve that cover around 140 days of data. Solar-like oscillations in HD 76920 are detected around 52μHz by TESS for the first time. By utilizing asteroseismic modeling that takes classical observational parameters and stellar oscillation frequencies as constraints, we determine improved measurements of the stellar mass (1.22 ± 0.11M_⊙), radius (8.68 ± 0.34R_☉), and age (5.2 ± 1.4 Gyr). With the updated parameters of the host star, we update the semimajor axis and mass of the planet asa= 1.165 ± 0.035 au and$M_{\mathrm{p}}\sin i=3.57\pm 0.22M_{\mathrm{Jup}}$. With an orbital pericenter of 0.142 ± 0.005 au, we confirm that the planet is currently far away enough from the star to experience negligible tidal decay until being engulfed in the stellar envelope. We also confirm that this event will occur within about 100 Myr, depending on the stellar model used.