Ensemble Asteroseismology of the Young Open Cluster NGC 2244

Our goal is to perform in-depth ensemble asteroseismology of the young open cluster NGC2244 with the 2-wheel Kepler mission. While the nominal Kepler mission already implied a revolution in stellar physics for solar-type stars and red giants, it was not possible to perform asteroseismic studies of m...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inarXiv.org
Main Authors Aerts, Conny, Zwintz, Konstanze, Marcos-Arenal, Pablo, Moravveji, Ehsan, Degroote, Pieter, Papics, Peter, Tkachenko, Andrew, De Ridder, Joris, Briquet, Maryline, Thoul, Anne, Saesen, Sophie, Mowlavi, Nami, Barblan, Fabio, Neiner, Coralie, Pavlovski, Kresimir, Guzik, Joyce
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 12.09.2013
Subjects
Astronomical models
Chemical composition
Clusters
Extrasolar planets
Hunting
Industrial plants
Kepler mission (NASA)
Massive stars
Organic chemistry
Photometry
Polarimetry
Red giant stars
Space telescopes
Spectrographs
Stellar age
Stellar evolution
Stellar physics
Stellar seismology
Stellar structure
Universe
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Our goal is to perform in-depth ensemble asteroseismology of the young open cluster NGC2244 with the 2-wheel Kepler mission. While the nominal Kepler mission already implied a revolution in stellar physics for solar-type stars and red giants, it was not possible to perform asteroseismic studies of massive OB stars because such targets were carefully avoided in the FoV in order not to disturb the exoplanet hunting. Now is an excellent time to fill this hole in mission capacity and to focus on the metal factories of the Universe, for which stellar evolution theory is least adequate. Our white paper aims to remedy major shortcomings in the theory of stellar structure and evolution of the most massive stars by focusing on a large ensemble of stars in a carefully selected young open cluster. Cluster asteroseismology of very young stars such as those of NGC2244 has the major advantage that all cluster stars have similar age, distance and initial chemical composition, implying drastic restrictions for the stellar modeling compared to asteroseismology of single isolated stars with very different ages and metallicities. Our study requires long-term photometric measurements of stars with visual magnitude ranging from 6.5 to 15 in a large FoV with a precision better than 30 ppm for the brightest cluster members (magnitude below 9) up to 500 ppm for the fainter ones, which is well achievable with 2-Wheel Kepler, in combination with high-precision high-resolution spectroscopy and spectro-polarimetry of the brightest pulsating cluster members. These ground-based spectroscopic data will be assembled with the HERMES and CORALIE spectrographs (twin 1.2m Mercator and Euler telescopes, La Palma, Canary Islands and La Silla, Chile), as well as with the spectro-polarimetric NARVAL instrument (2m BLT at the Pic du Midi, French Pyrenees), to which we have guaranteed access.
ISSN:2331-8422