Pulsations in binary stars -- a short review

TL;DR

This review discusses how combining asteroseismology and binary star observations enhances stellar parameter measurements, offering new insights into stellar physics and improving models through diverse data from large surveys.

Contribution

It highlights the benefits of studying pulsating stars in binary systems, emphasizing how this synergy constrains stellar models and improves age and mass determinations.

Findings

Binary systems enable precise stellar mass measurements.

Asteroseismic ages can be determined for both binary components.

Pulsation timing can infer dynamical masses.

Abstract

Asteroseismology has become an indispensable method for measuring stellar ages and radii, while binary systems remain the most prevalent tool for determining stellar masses. The synergy of the two, namely pulsating stars in binary systems, offer even more than the sum of their parts. The sometimes-overwhelming number of pulsation models to be examined for asteroseismic modelling can be tightly constrained when dynamical masses for both components are available. Binaries offer twice the opportunity to measure an asteroseismic age, which is then applicable to both components of a system, often providing ages for stars that are otherwise very difficult to determine. Some stellar physics, such as the strength of internal mixing or of core overshoot, is so difficult to infer that only in binary systems do sufficient constraints exist to advance our asteroseismic models. The pulsations themselves can also be used to infer dynamical masses through pulsation timing, while eclipsing binaries provide opportunities to test asteroseismic scaling relations. In these proceedings of an invited talk I selectively review the synergies afforded by pulsations in binaries, consisting of a variety of main-sequence primary spectral types, to inferences made from the oscillations of red giants, even when their companions are undetectable. I also describe how the field is changing as we become more data rich through each generation of large photometric survey.