Expanding the frontiers of cool-dwarf asteroseismology with ESPRESSO

Abstract

Fuelled by space photometry, asteroseismology is vastly benefitting the study of cool main-sequence stars, which exhibit convection-driven solar-like oscillations. Even so, the tiny oscillation amplitudes in K dwarfs continue to pose a challenge to space-based asteroseismology. A viable alternative is offered by the lower stellar noise over the oscillation timescales in Doppler observations. In this Letter we present the definite detection of solar-like oscillations in the bright K5 dwarf ϵ Indi based on time-intensive observations collected with the ESPRESSO spectrograph at the VLT, thus making it the coolest seismic dwarf ever observed. We measured the frequencies of a total of 19 modes of degree ℓ = 0–2 along with νmax = 5305 ± 176 μHz and Δν = 201.25 ± 0.16 μHz. The peak amplitude of radial modes is 2.6 ± 0.5 cm s−1, or a mere ∼14% of the solar value. Measured mode amplitudes are ∼2 times lower than predicted from a nominal L/M scaling relation and favour a scaling closer to (L/M)1.5 below ∼5500 K, carrying important implications for our understanding of the coupling efficiency between pulsations and near-surface convection in K dwarfs. This detection conclusively shows that precise asteroseismology of cool dwarfs is possible down to at least the mid-K regime using next-generation spectrographs on large-aperture telescopes, effectively opening up a new domain in observational asteroseismology.