Asteroseismology: a powerful tool to complement planet transits

Abstract

The study of stellar oscillations - asteroseismology - has revolutionized our understanding of the physical properties of the Sun, and similar potential for other stars has been demonstrated in recent years. In particular, asteroseismic studies can constrain the stellar size, temperature and composition, which are important parameters to our understanding of planetary structure and evolution. This makes asteroseismology a very powerful tool to complement planetary transits. As an example, the transit measurement alone does not give the radius of the planet unless the radius of the host star is known, which again requires a known distance to the system. Transit measurements will therefore often require additional measurements to establish the radius of the planet. With asteroseismology we can determine the radius of a star to very high precision (2-3%) using only the photometric transit measurements. This will be very valuable for a mission such as Kepler, which will produce photometric time series of very high quality.