Spin down of the core rotation in red giants

By B. Mosser, M. Goupil, K. Belkacem, J. Marques, P. Beck, Steven Bloemen, J. Ridder, C. Barban, S. Deheuvels, Y. Elsworth and 11 more. 2012

321 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Context. The space mission Kepler provides us with long and uninterrupted photometric time series of red giants. We are now able to probe the rotational behaviour in their deep interiors using the observations of mixed modes. Aims. We aim to measure the rotational splittings in red giants and to derive scaling relations for rotation related to seismic and fundamental stellar parameters. Methods. We have developed a dedicated method for automated measurements of the rotational splittings in a large number of red giants. Ensemble asteroseismology, namely the examination of a large number of red giants at different stages of their evolution, allows us to derive global information on stellar evolution. Results. We have measured rotational splittings in a sample of about 300 red giants. We have also shown that these splittings are dominated by the core rotation. Under the assumption that a linear analysis can provide the rotational splitting, we observe a small increase of the core rotation of stars ascending the red giant branch. Alternatively, an important slow down is observed for red-clump stars compared to the red giant branch. We also show that, at fixed stellar radius, the specific angular momentum increases with increasing stellar mass. Conclusions. Ensemble asteroseismology indicates what has been indirectly suspected for a while: our interpretation of the observed rotational splittings leads to the conclusion that the mean core rotation significantly slows down during the red giant phase. The slow-down occurs in the last stages of the red giant branch. This spinning down explains, for instance, the long rotation periods measured in white dwarfs.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/939d83f43674be6080467ac4493f4cebedc52a6c

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. D. Huber
2. D. Stello
3. W. Chaplin
4. E. Gaidos
5. Jo Bovy
6. A. Miglio
7. T. Bedding
8. B. Mosser

In Instrumentation

1. D. Huber
2. D. Stello
3. W. Chaplin
4. E. Gaidos
5. B. Mosser
6. T. Bedding
7. A. Miglio
8. Jo Bovy

Citations in the corpus

• The connection between stellar granulation and oscillation as seen by the Kepler mission (2014, background): “…analysis of an individual star (di Mauro et al. 2011) and of the radial (Kallinger et al. 2012) and non-radial mixed mode spectra (Bedding et al. 2011; Mosser et al. 2012c), and how the latter are used to constrain rotational properties (Beck et al. 2012) and their evolution (Mosser et al. 2012b).”
• Revised Stellar Properties of Kepler Targets for the Q1-17 (DR25) Transit Detection Run (2016, background): “…a large number of breakthrough discoveries, such as the asteroseismic measurement of the internal rotation (Beck et al. 2012; Deheuvels et al. 2012; Mosser et al. 2012; Deheuvels et al. 2014) and magnetic fields (Fuller et al. 2015; Stello et al. 2016) of subgiants and red giants, the detection of…”
• Rotation and magnetism of Kepler pulsating solar-like stars : Towards asteroseismically calibrated age-rotation relations (2014, background): “…to a few clusters (Stello et al. 2011; Basu et al. 2011) – it is now possible to infer the core rotation rate of these stars (Beck et al. 2012; Mosser et al. 2012; Di Mauro et al. 2013; Goupil et al. 2013), which is still difficult to determine for solar-like stars and even for the Sun…”
• GYRE: An open-source stellar oscillation code based on a new Magnus Multiple Shooting Scheme (2013, background): “…automated adiabatic and nonadiabatic asteroseismic analyses, in turn facilitating investigation of issues such as core rotation in RGB stars (e.g., Mosser et al. 2012), instability strips in white dwarfs (e.g., Fontaine & Brassard 2008), and the surprising incidence of opacity-driven oscillations…”
• Most Black Holes Are Born Very Slowly Rotating (2019, background): “Fortunately, asteroseismology has delivered decisive data (Beck et al. 2012; Mosser et al. 2012; Deheuvels et al. 2015; Hermes et al. 2017; Gehan et al. 2018), unambiguously demonstrating that the internal rotation rates of low-mass stars (and their white dwarf descendants) are slower than…”
• Mixed modes in red giants: a window on stellar evolution (2014, methodology): “1) occupy a small region of the ΔΠ1-Δν diagram, around 300 s and 4.1μHz (Mosser et al. 2012b).”
• MODULES FOR EXPERIMENTS IN STELLAR ASTROPHYSICS (MESA): PLANETS, OSCILLATIONS, ROTATION, AND MASSIVE STARS (2013, background): “Although beyond the scope of this paper, such comparisons are critical when coupled to observations of the effects of rotation in stars (e.g., Hunter et al. 2007; Evans et al. 2011) including asteroseismology (Beck et al. 2012; Mosser et al. 2012).”
• Asteroseismology of Solar-Type and Red-Giant Stars (2013, methodology): “…results have been obtained from peak-bagging (e.g., Baudin et al. 2011, Appourchaux et al. 2012) and from other techniques (Huber et al. 2011b, Mosser et al. 2012a) developed from ground-based analysis methods (e.g., Kjeldsen et al. 2008), including results on stars in open clusters (Stello…”
• PLATO as it is: a legacy mission for Galactic archaeology (2017, unknown): “…one to recover information about the internal rotational profile (e.g., see Beck et al. 2012; Deheuvels et al. 2012, 2014; Eggenberger et al. 2012; Mosser et al. 2012), or to infer the inclination of the star’s rotational axis with respect to the line of sight (e.g., see Chaplin et al. 2013;…”
• REVISED STELLAR PROPERTIES OF KEPLER TARGETS FOR THE QUARTER 1–16 TRANSIT DETECTION RUN (2013, background): “…N. Cherry Ave., Tucson, AZ 85719, USA study of the core structure and rotation of subgiant and red-giant stars (Bedding et al. 2011; Beck et al. 2011; Mosser et al. 2012b; Deheuvels et al. 2012), an order of magnitude increase of known dwarf stars with detected oscillations (Chaplin et al. 2011),…”
• THE APOKASC CATALOG: AN ASTEROSEISMIC AND SPECTROSCOPIC JOINT SURVEY OF TARGETS IN THE KEPLER FIELDS (2014, background): “Rapid rotation in the cores of red giants has been discovered (Beck et al. 2012; Deheuvels et al. 2012; Mosser et al. 2012a).”
• White Dwarf Rotation as a Function of Mass and a Dichotomy of Mode Line Widths: Kepler Observations of 27 Pulsating DA White Dwarfs through K2 Campaign 8 (2017, unknown): “For example, Kepler data have been especially effective at illuminating differential rotation and angular momentum evolution in 1.0–2.0Me first-ascent red giants (e.g., Mosser et al. 2012), where it was found that their cores are rotating roughly 10 times faster than their envelopes.”
• Improved angular momentum evolution model for solar-like stars II. Exploring the mass dependence (2015, unknown): “In particular, the detection of mixed gravity and pressure modes have allowed various groups to derive the internal rotation profile of red giant stars, evolving o ff the main sequence (e.g. Deheuvels et al. 2012; Mosser et al. 2012).”
• Seismic diagnostics for transport of angular momentum in stars. I. Rotational splittings from the pre-main sequence to the red-giant branch. (2012, background): “Such rotation splittings lead to a core rotation rate that is closer to the observations but still too high by almost one order of magnitude compared with what is seen in recent observations (Beck et al. 2012; Deheuvels et al. 2012; Mosser et al. 2012a).”
• Asteroseismology of 16,000 Kepler Red Giants: Global Oscillation Parameters, Masses, and Radii (2018, background): “Our results are in qualitative agreement with the predictions given by Kjeldsen & Bedding (2011), where higher-mass stars are expected to have lower oscillation amplitude and granulation power (Mosser et al. 2012a).”
• Slowing the spins of stellar cores (2019, background): “This result agrees with Cantiello et al. (2014), who find that red clump and WD rotation rates require approximate conservation of core AM after the RGB bump.”
• ANGULAR MOMENTUM TRANSPORT WITHIN EVOLVED LOW-MASS STARS (2014, methodology): “In the era of space asteroseismology, the Kepler satellite enabled the measurement of the core rotation in many red giant branch (RGB) stars using the splitting of mixed modes (Beck et al. 2012; Deheuvels et al. 2012; Mosser et al. 2012b; Deheuvels et al. 2014).”
• ASTEROSEISMIC CLASSIFICATION OF STELLAR POPULATIONS AMONG 13,000 RED GIANTS OBSERVED BY KEPLER (2013, methodology): “A detailed study of the difference between the period spacing of uncoupled g-modes and that of the mixed modes was conducted by Mosser et al. (2012a).”