Asteroseismic modelling of main-sequence solar-like stars and Kepler exoplanet host stars with the FICO procedure I. Catalogue of fundamental stellar properties
Jérôme Bétrisey, Daniel R. Reese, Camilla Pezzotti, Marie-Jo Goupil, Margarida S. Cunha
TLDR
The FICO procedure precisely models 95 solar-like and exoplanet host stars, achieving high accuracy and outperforming direct fitting for higher-mass stars.
Key contributions
- FICO procedure models 95 main-sequence solar-like and Kepler exoplanet host stars using a three-step hybrid method.
- Achieves high precision: 2.3% mass, 0.82% radius, 6.9% age, 0.49% mean density, meeting PLATO requirements.
- Surface-independent FICO mitigates biases from semi-empirical surface corrections, especially for stars >1.15 Msun.
- Identifies age biases (~11.5% for Kepler LEGACY) comparable to PLATO accuracy requirements, highlighting model validation.
Why it matters
This paper introduces FICO, a robust asteroseismic modelling tool for precise stellar characterisation. Its hybrid approach effectively addresses surface effects, crucial for accurately determining exoplanet host-star properties. These findings are vital for next-generation missions like PLATO.
Original Abstract
We present detailed asteroseismic modelling of 95 main-sequence solar-like stars and Kepler exoplanet host stars using the FICO procedure, a three-step method that combines forward and inverse techniques that enables precise inference of fundamental stellar parameters such as mass, radius, age, and mean density. We applied the FICO procedure to a catalogue of stars with high-quality asteroseismic and classical observations, and compared its results against literature values. We also compared its performance with direct frequency fitting using semi-empirical surface corrections. The FICO procedure achieved statistical precisions of 2.3%, 0.82%, 6.9%, and 0.49% in mass, radius, age, and mean density, respectively on average, well within PLATO quality requirements. We reconfirmed that surface-independent methods more effectively mitigate biases inherent to semi-empirical surface corrections, particularly for stars more massive than 1.15 Msun or above 6050 K. Two regimes were identified: near-solar conditions, where both approaches perform similarly, and higher-mass stars, where surface-independent methods consistently outperform direct fitting methods. While our results are consistent with literature values, we observed age biases (~11.5% on average for the Kepler LEGACY sample) that are comparable to the PLATO accuracy requirement of 10% for a Sun-like star, and therefore not negligible in that context. The FICO procedure provides a robust framework for high-precision stellar characterisation in the PLATO era. Its hybrid architecture effectively addresses surface effects, making it a promising tool for the accurate determination of exoplanet host-star properties. Our findings also highlight the importance of carefully selecting and validating the physical assumptions embedded in stellar models, particularly in the context of next-generation space missions such as PLATO.
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