Discovery of post-mass-transfer helium-burning red giants using asteroseismology
Letter
Article Title | Discovery of post-mass-transfer helium-burning red giants using asteroseismology |
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ERA Journal ID | 213748 |
Article Category | Letter |
Authors | Li, Yaguang, Bedding, Timothy R., Murphy, Simon J., Stello, Dennis, Chen, Yifan, Huber, Daniel, Joyce, Meridith, Marks, Dion, Zhang, Xianfei, Bi, Shaolan, Colman, Isabel L., Hayden, Michael R., Hey, Daniel R., Li, Gang, Montet, Benjamin T., Sharma, Sanjib and Wu, Yaqian |
Journal Title | Nature Astronomy |
Journal Citation | 6, pp. 673-680 |
Number of Pages | 12 |
Year | 2022 |
Publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
Place of Publication | United Kingdom |
ISSN | 2397-3366 |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-022-01648-5 |
Web Address (URL) | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-022-01648-5 |
Abstract | A star expands to become a red giant when it has fused all the hydrogen in its core into helium. If the star is in a binary system, its envelope can overflow onto its companion or be ejected into space, leaving a hot core and potentially forming a subdwarf B star1,2,3. However, most red giants that have partially transferred envelopes in this way remain cool on the surface and are almost indistinguishable from those that have not. Among ~7,000 helium-burning red giants observed by NASA’s Kepler mission, we use asteroseismology to identify two classes of stars that must have undergone considerable mass loss, presumably due to stripping in binary interactions. The first class comprises about seven underluminous stars with smaller helium-burning cores than their single-star counterparts. Theoretical models show that these small cores imply the stars had much larger masses when ascending the red giant branch. The second class consists of 32 red giants with masses down to 0.5 M⊙, whose implied ages would exceed the age of the universe had no mass loss occurred. The numbers are consistent with binary statistics, and our results open up new possibilities to study the evolution of post-mass-transfer binary systems. |
Contains Sensitive Content | Does not contain sensitive content |
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020 | 510109. Stellar astronomy and planetary systems |
Public Notes | Files associated with this item cannot be displayed due to copyright restrictions. |
Byline Affiliations | University of Sydney |
Aarhus University, Denmark | |
University of New South Wales | |
University of Hawaii, United States | |
Space Telescope Science Institute, United States | |
Beijing Normal University, China | |
American Museum of Natural History, United States | |
University of Toulouse, France | |
Chinese Academy of Sciences, China |
https://research.usq.edu.au/item/z980x/discovery-of-post-mass-transfer-helium-burning-red-giants-using-asteroseismology
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