Ensemble asteroseismology of red-giant stars

TL;DR

This paper reviews ensemble asteroseismology studies of red-giant stars using Kepler data, highlighting how large samples enable understanding stellar properties and evolution.

Contribution

It summarizes recent ensemble asteroseismology results from Kepler data for field stars and clusters, emphasizing the significance of large-scale stellar oscillation studies.

Findings

Large samples of red giants with oscillation data enable statistical analysis.

Kepler data has provided insights into stellar properties and evolution.

Studies of clusters reveal evolutionary stages of red giants.

Abstract

The successful launches of the CoRoT and Kepler space missions have led to the detections of solar-like oscillations in large samples of red-giant stars. The large numbers of red giants with observed oscillations make it possible to investigate the properties of the sample as a whole: ensemble asteroseismology. In this article we summarise ensemble asteroseismology results obtained from data released by the Kepler Science Team (~150,000 field stars) as presented by Hekker et al. (2011b) and for the clusters NGC 6791, NGC 6811 and NGC 6819 (Hekker et al. 2011a) and we discuss the importance of such studies.