The K2 M67 Study: Revisiting old friends with K2 reveals oscillating red giants in the open cluster M67

TL;DR

This study uses K2 data to detect solar-like oscillations in M67's red giants, providing precise stellar parameters and confirming the effectiveness of seismic scaling relations for near-solar metallicity stars.

Contribution

First unambiguous detection of solar-like oscillations in M67 red giants using K2, enabling accurate stellar property measurements and validation of seismic methods.

Findings

Seismic-informed distance of 816+/-11pc

Average red-giant mass of 1.36+/-0.01Msun

No evidence of strong mass loss on the red giant branch

Abstract

Observations of stellar clusters have had a tremendous impact in forming our understanding of stellar evolution. The open cluster M67 has a particularly important role as a calibration benchmark for stellar evolution theory due to its near solar composition and age. As a result, it has been observed extensively, including attempts to detect solar-like oscillations in its main sequence and red giant stars. However, any asteroseismic inference has so far remained elusive due to the difficulty in measuring these extremely low amplitude oscillations. Here we report the first unambiguous detection of solar-like oscillations in the red giants of M67. We use data from the Kepler ecliptic mission, K2, to measure the global asteroseismic properties. We find a model-independent seismic-informed distance of 816+/-11pc, or (m-M)o=9.57+/-0.03mag, an average red-giant mass of 1.36+/-0.01Msun, in agreement with the dynamical mass from an eclipsing binary near the cluster turn-off, and ages of individual stars compatible with isochrone fitting. We see no evidence of strong mass loss on the red giant branch. We also determine seismic log g of all the cluster giants with a typical precision of ~0.01dex. Our results generally show good agreement with independent methods and support the use of seismic scaling relations to determine global properties of red giant stars with near solar metallicity. We further illustrate that the data are of such high quality, that future work on individual mode frequencies should be possible, which would extend the scope of seismic analysis of this cluster.