Searching for solar-like oscillations in pre-main sequence stars using APOLLO

TL;DR

This paper develops and applies a new method called APOLLO to detect solar-like oscillations in pre-main sequence stars using Kepler K2 data, successfully identifying candidate stars and demonstrating robustness even with short observational time series.

Contribution

The paper introduces APOLLO, a novel software tool for detecting low signal-to-noise solar-like oscillations in pre-main sequence stars, calibrated with main sequence data and applied to Kepler K2 observations.

Findings

Identified EPIC 205375290 as a candidate pre-main sequence star with solar-like oscillations.

Demonstrated APOLLO's robustness on short-duration TESS data.

Calibrated the method using known Kepler main sequence oscillators.

Abstract

In recent years, our understanding of solar-like oscillations from main sequence to red giant stars has improved dramatically thanks to pristine data collected from space telescopes. One of the remaining open questions focuses around the observational identification of solar-like oscillations in pre-main sequence stars. We aim to develop an improved method to search for solar-like oscillations in pre-main sequence stars and apply it to data collected by the Kepler K2 mission. Our software APOLLO includes a novel way to detect low signal-to-noise ratio solar like oscillations in the presence of a high background level. By calibrating our method using known solar-like oscillators from the main Kepler mission, we apply it to T Tauri stars observed by Kepler K2 and identify several candidate pre-main sequence solar-like oscillators. We find that our method is robust even when applied to time-series of observational lengths as short as those obtained with the TESS satellite in one sector. We identify EPIC 205375290 as a possible candidate for solar-like oscillations in a pre-main sequence star with $\nu_\mathrm{max} \simeq 242\,\mu$Hz. We also derive EPIC 205375290's fundamental parameters to be $T_\mathrm{eff}$ = 3670$\pm$180 K, log $g$ = 3.85$\pm$0.3, $v$sin$i$ = 8 $\pm$ 1 km s$^{-1}$, and about solar metallicity from a high-resolution spectrum obtained from the Keck archive.