The CoRoT target HD175726: an active star with weak solar-like oscillations

TL;DR

This study analyzes CoRoT data of the active star HD175726, demonstrating the extraction of solar-like oscillation parameters despite low signal-to-noise ratio, and highlighting the effectiveness of autocorrelation methods for asteroseismic analysis.

Contribution

The paper introduces an efficient autocorrelation-based method for analyzing low signal-to-noise asteroseismic data from CoRoT, applicable to future missions like Kepler and Plato.

Findings

Measured large separation of 97.2 microHz, slightly below expectations.

Detected variation of large separation with frequency.

Mode amplitude lower than predicted by scaling laws.

Abstract

Context. The CoRoT short runs give us the opportunity to observe a large variety of late-type stars through their solar-like oscillations. We report observations of the star HD175726 that lasted for 27 days during the first short run of the mission. The time series reveals a high-activity signal and the power spectrum presents an excess due to solar-like oscillations with a low signal-to-noise ratio. Aims. Our aim is to identify the most efficient tools to extract as much information as possible from the power density spectrum. Methods. The most productive method appears to be the autocorrelation of the time series, calculated as the spectrum of the filtered spectrum. This method is efficient, very rapid computationally, and will be useful for the analysis of other targets, observed with CoRoT or with forthcoming missions such as Kepler and Plato. Results. The mean large separation has been measured to be 97.2+-0.5 microHz, slightly below the expected value determined from solar scaling laws.We also show strong evidence for variation of the large separation with frequency. The bolometric mode amplitude is only 1.7+-0.25 ppm for radial modes, which is 1.7 times less than expected. Due to the low signal-to-noise ratio, mode identification is not possible for the available data set of HD175726. Conclusions. This study shows the possibility of extracting a seismic signal despite a signal-to-noise ratio of only 0.37. The observation of such a target shows the efficiency of the CoRoT data, and the potential benefit of longer observing runs.