Asteroseismology of red giants as a tool for studying stellar populations: first steps

TL;DR

This paper discusses how asteroseismology of red giants, enabled by space telescopes like CoRoT and Kepler, provides valuable data on stellar masses and radii, aiding the study of Galactic stellar populations.

Contribution

It reviews the current constraints from red-giant seismology and compares seismic estimates with other methods for nearby stars.

Findings

Seismic scaling relations yield consistent mass and radius estimates.

Asteroseismology enhances understanding of Milky Way's stellar populations.

Comparison shows good agreement with other measurement techniques.

Abstract

The detection of solar-like oscillations in G and K giants with the CoRoT and Kepler space-based satellites allows robust constraints to be set on the mass and radius of such stars. The availability of these constraints for thousands of giants sampling different regions of the Galaxy promises to enrich our understanding on the Milky Way's constituents. In this contribution we briefly recall which are the relevant constraints that red-giant seismology can currently provide to the study of stellar populations. We then present, for a few nearby stars, the comparison between radius and mass determined using seismic scaling relations and those obtained by other methods.