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Science. 2014 Aug 01;345(6196):550-3. doi: 10.1126/science.1253645. Epub 2014 Jul 03.

Asteroseismology. Echography of young stars reveals their evolution.

Science (New York, N.Y.)

K Zwintz, L Fossati, T Ryabchikova, D Guenther, C Aerts, T G Barnes, N Themeßl, D Lorenz, C Cameron, R Kuschnig, S Pollack-Drs, E Moravveji, A Baglin, J M Matthews, A F J Moffat, E Poretti, M Rainer, S M Rucinski, D Sasselov, W W Weiss

Affiliations

  1. Instituut voor Sterrenkunde, Katholieke Universiteit (KU) Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, 3001 Leuven, Belgium. [email protected].
  2. Argelander Institut für Astronomie der Universität Bonn, Auf dem Hügel 71, 53121 Bonn, Germany.
  3. Institute of Astronomy, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Pyatnitskaya 48, 109017 Moscow, Russia.
  4. Department of Astronomy and Physics, St. Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 3C3, Canada.
  5. Instituut voor Sterrenkunde, Katholieke Universiteit (KU) Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, 3001 Leuven, Belgium. Department of Astrophysics, Institute for Mathematics, Astrophysics and Particle Physics, Radboud University Nijmegen, Post Office Box 9010, 6500 GL Nijmegen, Netherlands.
  6. The University of Texas at Austin, McDonald Observatory, 82 Mt. Locke Road, McDonald Observatory, TX 79734, USA.
  7. Universität Wien, Institut für Astrophysik, Türkenschanzstraße 17, 1180 Vienna, Austria.
  8. Department of Mathematics, Physics and Geology, Cape Breton University, 1250 Grand Lake Road, Sydney, Nova Scotia B1P 6L2, Canada.
  9. Instituut voor Sterrenkunde, Katholieke Universiteit (KU) Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, 3001 Leuven, Belgium.
  10. Laboratoire d'Études Spatiales et d'Instrumentation en Astrophysique, Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, 5 place Jules Janssen, 92195, Meudon, France.
  11. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z1, Canada.
  12. Départment de Physique, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ. Centre-Ville, Montréal, Quebec H3C 3J7, Canada.
  13. Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Via E. Bianchi 46, 23807 Merate, Italy.
  14. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 50 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H4, Canada.
  15. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.

PMID: 24993346 DOI: 10.1126/science.1253645

Abstract

We demonstrate that a seismic analysis of stars in their earliest evolutionary phases is a powerful method with which to identify young stars and distinguish their evolutionary states. The early star that is born from the gravitational collapse of a molecular cloud reaches at some point sufficient temperature, mass, and luminosity to be detected. Accretion stops, and the pre-main sequence star that emerges is nearly fully convective and chemically homogeneous. It will continue to contract gravitationally until the density and temperature in the core are high enough to start nuclear burning of hydrogen. We show that there is a relationship for a sample of young stars between detected pulsation properties and their evolutionary status, illustrating the potential of asteroseismology for the early evolutionary phases.

Copyright © 2014, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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