Characterisation of red-giant stars in the public Kepler data

Authors :: Hekker, S.
Gilliland, R. L.
Elsworth, Y.
Chaplin, W. J.
De Ridder, J.
Stello, D.
Kallinger, T.
Ibrahim, K. A.
Klaus, T. C.
Li, J.
Publication Year :: 2011
Publisher :: arXiv, 2011.
Abstract: The first public release of long-cadence stellar photometric data collected by the NASA Kepler mission has now been made available. In this paper we characterise the red-giant (G-K) stars in this large sample in terms of their solar-like oscillations. We use published methods and well-known scaling relations in the analysis. Just over 70% of the red giants in the sample show detectable solar-like oscillations, and from these oscillations we are able to estimate the fundamental properties of the stars. This asteroseismic analysis reveals different populations: low-luminosity H-shell burning red-giant branch stars, cool high-luminosity red giants on the red-giant branch and He-core burning clump and secondary-clump giants.<br />Comment: Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Main Journal