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Stellar ages from asteroseismology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

Yveline Lebreton  and
Josefina Montalbán
Yveline Lebreton
Affiliation:
Observatoire de Paris, GEPI, UMR CNRS 8111, Place J. Janssen, 92195 Meudon, France email: [email protected] IPR, Université de Rennes 1, 35042 Rennes, France
Josefina Montalbán
Affiliation:
Institut d'Astrophysique et de Géophysique, Université de Liège, Belgium email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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Asteroseismology has been recognized for a long time as a very powerful mean to probe stellar interiors. The oscillations frequencies are closely related to stellar internal structure properties via the density and the sound speed profiles. Since these properties are in turn tightly linked with the mass and evolutionary state, we can expect to determine the age and mass of a star from the comparison of its oscillation spectrum with the predictions of stellar models. Such a comparison will of course suffer both from the problems we face when modeling a particular star (for instance the uncertainties on its global parameters and chemical composition) and from our general misunderstanding of the physical processes at work in stellar interiors (for instance the various transport processes that may lead to core mixing and affect the ages predicted by models). However for stars where observations have provided very precise and numerous oscillation frequencies together with accurate global parameters and additional information (as the radius or the mass of the star if it is member of a binary system, the radius if it observable in interferometry or the mean density if the star is an exoplanet host), we can also expect to better constrain the physical description of the stellar structure and transport processes and to finally get a more reliable age estimation.

After a brief survey of stellar pulsations, we present some general seismic diagnostics that can be used to infer the age of a pulsating star as well as their limitations. We then illustrate the ability of asteroseismology to scrutinize stellar interiors on the basis of a few examples. In the years to come, extended very precise asteroseismic observations are expected, either in photometry or in spectroscopy, from present and future ground-based (HARPS, CORALIE, ELODIE, UVES, UCLES, SIAMOIS, SONG) or spatial devices (MOST, CoRoT, WIRE, Kepler, PLATO). This will considerably enlarge the sample of stars eligible to asteroseismic age determination and should allow to estimate the age of individual stars with a 10-20% accuracy.

Keywords

stars: atmospheresevolutionfundamental parametersinteriorsoscillationstechniques: spectroscopic
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 4 , Symposium S258: The Ages of Stars , October 2008 , pp. 419 - 430
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2009

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