Testing the intrinsic scatter of the asteroseismic scaling relations with Kepler red giants

Abstract

Asteroseismic scaling relations are often used to derive stellar masses and radii, particulaly for stellar, exoplanet, and Galactic studies. It is therefore important that their precisions are known. Here we measure the intrinsic scatter of the underlying seismic scaling relations for $\Delta \nu$ and ${\nu }_{\max }$, using two sharp features that are formed in the H--R diagram (or related diagrams) by the red giant populations. These features are the edge near the zero-age core-helium-burning phase, and the strong clustering of stars at the so-called red giant branch bump. The broadening of those features is determined by factors including the intrinsic scatter of the scaling relations themselves, and therefore it is capable of imposing constraints on them. We modelled Kepler stars with a Galaxia synthetic population, upon which we applied the intrinsic scatter of the scaling relations to match the degree of sharpness seen in the observation. We found that the random errors from measuring $\Delta \nu$ and ${\nu }_{\max }$ provide the dominating scatter that blurs the features. As a consequence, we conclude that the scaling relations have intrinsic scatter of $\sim 0.5\%$ ($\Delta \nu$), $\sim 1.1\%$ (${\nu }_{\max }$), $\sim 1.7\%$ ($M$) and $\sim 0.4\%$ ($R$), for the SYD pipeline measured $\Delta \nu$ and ${\nu }_{\max }$. This confirms that the scaling relations are very powerful tools. In addition, we show that standard evolution models fail to predict some of the structures in the observed population of both the HeB and RGB stars. Further stellar model improvements are needed to reproduce the exact distributions.

accepted for publication in MNRAS. comments welcome. 12 pages, 11 figures

References in corpus (14)

• The NumPy array: a structure for efficient numerical computation
• Asteroseismology and Gaia: Testing Scaling Relations Using 2200 Kepler Stars with TGAS Parallaxes
• Testing the asteroseismic scaling relations for Red Giants with Eclipsing Binaries Observed by Kepler
• The First APOKASC Catalog of Kepler Dwarf and Subgiant Stars
• Determining stellar parameters of asteroseismic targets: going beyond the use of scaling relations
• Oscillating K giants with the WIRE satellite: determination of their asteroseismic masses
• Surface rotation of Kepler red giant stars
• Changing the ${\nu }_{\max }$ Scaling Relation: The Need For a Mean Molecular Weight Term
• Testing the radius scaling relation with $Gaia$ DR2 in the $Kepler$ field
• Deep Learning Classification in Asteroseismology
• Testing asteroseismology with Gaia DR2: Hierarchical models of the Red Clump
• Fundamental properties of Kepler and CoRoT targets: III. Tuning scaling relations using the first adiabatic exponent
• Solar $p$-mode damping rates: insight from a 3D hydrodynamical simulation
• The amplitude of solar p-mode oscillations from three-dimensional convection simulations

Cited by in corpus (18)

• Discovery of post-mass-transfer helium-burning red giants using asteroseismology
• Asteroseismology of 3,642 Kepler Red Giants: Correcting the Scaling Relations based on Detailed Modeling
• A prescription for the asteroseismic surface correction
• Integrated Mass Loss of Evolved Stars in M4 using Asteroseismology
• A Catalogue of Solar-Like Oscillators Observed by TESS in 120-second and 20-second Cadence
• Age-Dating Red Giant Stars Associated with Galactic Disk and Halo Substructures
• HD-TESS: An Asteroseismic Catalog of Bright Red Giants within TESS Continuous Viewing Zones
• Lithium Evolution of Giant Stars Observed by LAMOST and Kepler
• BESTP -- An Automated Bayesian Modeling Tool for Asteroseismology
• Evidence that Mass Loss on the Red Giant Branch Decreases with Metallicity
• A simple method to measure numax for asteroseismology: application to 16,000 oscillating Kepler red giants
• A binary with a $\delta$~Scuti star and an oscillating red giant: orbit and asteroseismology of KIC9773821
• Red giants evolutionary status determination: the complete Kepler catalog
• Does the ${\nu }_{\max }$ scaling relation depend on metallicity? Insights from 3D convection simulations
• Coralie radial velocity search for companions around evolved stars (CASCADES) II. Seismic masses for three red giants orbited by long-period massive planets
• The K2 Galactic Archaeology Program: Overview, target selection and survey properties
• FRA -- A new Fast, Robust and Automated pipeline for the detection and measurement of solar-like oscillations in time-series photometry of red-giant stars
• Seismic and spectroscopic analysis of 9 bright red giants observed by Kepler