Asteroseismology of red giants: photometric observations of Arcturus by SMEI

Abstract

We present new results on oscillations of the K1.5 III giant Arcturus (alpha Boo), from analysis of just over 2.5 yr of precise photometric observations made by the Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) on board the Coriolis satellite. A strong mode of oscillation is uncovered by the analysis, having frequency 3.51+/-0.03 micro-Hertz. By fitting its mode peak, we are able offer a highly constrained direct estimate of the damping time (tau = 24+/-1 days). The data also hint at the possible presence of several radial-mode overtones, and maybe some non-radial modes. We are also able to measure the properties of the granulation on the star, with the characteristic timescale for the granulation estimated to be 0.50+/-0.05 days.

6 pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

References in corpus (2)

• Excitation of solar-like oscillations across the HR diagram
• Pulsations detected in the line profile variations of red giants: Modelling of line moments, line bisector and line shape

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