Multi-cavity gravito-acoustic modes in stars: A general analytical resonance condition

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive analytical resonance condition for stellar oscillation modes, modeling stars as multi-cavity acoustic interferometers, enhancing the understanding and prediction of stellar seismic spectra across evolutionary stages.

Contribution

It introduces a general analytical framework for the resonance condition of spheroidal adiabatic modes applicable at various stellar evolutionary stages, unifying previous models.

Findings

Unified resonance condition depending on phase lags, coupling factors, and wave number integrals.

Retrieves known forms like mixed modes and glitches as special cases.

Provides a new theoretical tool for interpreting stellar oscillation spectra.

Abstract

Asteroseismology has proven to be a powerful method for probing stellar interiors. Analytical descriptions of the global oscillation modes, in combination with pulsation codes, have provided valuable help in processing and interpreting the large amount of seismic data collected by the CoRoT, $Kepler$, and TESS missions. These prior results have paved the way to more in-depth analyses of the oscillation spectra of stars, which requires innovative theoretical descriptions of stellar oscillations. In this paper, we aim to analytically express the resonance condition of the spheroidal adiabatic oscillation modes in a very general way, applicable at different evolutionary stages. In the present formulation, a star is represented as an acoustic interferometer composed of a multitude of resonant cavities where waves can propagate and the short-wavelength JWKB approximation is met. Each cavity is separated from the adjacent ones by barriers, which corresponds to regions either where waves are evanescent or where the JWKB approximation fails. The stationary modes are computed using two different physical representations: 1) the infinite-time reflections picture 2) the linear boundary value problem picture. Both provide the same resonance condition, which ultimately turns out to depend on a number of parameters: the reflection and transmission phase lags introduced by each barrier, the coupling factor associated with each barrier, and the wave number integral over each resonant cavity. Using such a formulation, we can retrieve the usual forms derived in previous works (e.g., mixed modes with two or three cavities, low- and large-amplitude glitches). This resonance condition provides a new tool that is useful in predicting the stellar oscillation spectra and interpret seismic observations at different evolutionary stages. Practical applications are left to future work.