Bibcode
Gaulme, P.; McKeever, J.; Jackiewicz, J.; Rawls, M. L.; Corsaro, E.; Mosser, B.; Southworth, J.; Mahadevan, S.; Bender, C.; Deshpande, R.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 832, Issue 2, article id. 121, 19 pp. (2016).
Advertised on:
12
2016
Journal
Citations
141
Refereed citations
129
Description
Given the potential of ensemble asteroseismology for understanding
fundamental properties of large numbers of stars, it is critical to
determine the accuracy of the scaling relations on which these
measurements are based. From several powerful validation techniques, all
indications so far show that stellar radius estimates from the
asteroseismic scaling relations are accurate to within a few percent.
Eclipsing binary systems hosting at least one star with detectable
solar-like oscillations constitute the ideal test objects for validating
asteroseismic radius and mass inferences. By combining radial velocity
(RV) measurements and photometric time series of eclipses, it is
possible to determine the masses and radii of each component of a
double-lined spectroscopic binary. We report the results of a four-year
RV survey performed with the échelle spectrometer of the
Astrophysical Research Consortium’s 3.5 m telescope and the APOGEE
spectrometer at Apache Point Observatory. We compare the masses and
radii of 10 red giants (RGs) obtained by combining radial velocities and
eclipse photometry with the estimates from the asteroseismic scaling
relations. We find that the asteroseismic scaling relations overestimate
RG radii by about 5% on average and masses by about 15% for stars at
various stages of RG evolution. Systematic overestimation of mass leads
to underestimation of stellar age, which can have important implications
for ensemble asteroseismology used for Galactic studies. As part of a
second objective, where asteroseismology is used for understanding
binary systems, we confirm that oscillations of RGs in close binaries
can be suppressed enough to be undetectable, a hypothesis that was
proposed in a previous work.