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Jerome Ballot

Publications and source records attributed to Jerome Ballot.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2024

The PLATO Mission

PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is ESA's M3 mission designed to detect and characterise extrasolar planets and perform asteroseismic monitoring of a large number of stars. PLATO will detect small planets (down to <2 R_(Earth)) around bright stars (<11 mag), including terrestrial planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars. With the complement of radial velocity observations from the ground, planets will be characterised for their radius, mass, and age with high accuracy (5 %, 10 %, 10 % for an Earth-Sun combination respectively). PLATO will provide us with a large-scale catalogue of well-characterised small planets up to intermediate orbital periods, relevant for a meaningful comparison to planet formation theories and to better understand planet evolution. It will make possible comparative exoplanetology to place our Solar System planets in a broader context. In parallel, PLATO will study (host) stars using asteroseismology, allowing us to determine the stellar properties with high accuracy, substantially enhancing our knowledge of stellar structure and evolution. The payload instrument consists of 26 cameras with 12cm aperture each. For at least four years, the mission will perform high-precision photometric measurements. Here we review the science objectives, present PLATO's target samples and fields, provide an overview of expected core science performance as well as a description of the instrument and the mission profile at the beginning of the serial production of the flight cameras. PLATO is scheduled for a launch date end 2026. This overview therefore provides a summary of the mission to the community in preparation of the upcoming operational phases.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2024

Asteroseismic measurement of core and envelope rotation rates for 2006 red giant branch stars

Tens of thousands of red giant stars in the Kepler data exhibit solar-like oscillations. Their oscillations enable us to study the internal physics from core to surface, such as differential rotation. However, envelope rotation rates have been measured for only a dozen RGB stars so far. The limited sample hinders the theoretical interpretation of angular momentum transport in post-main-sequence phases. We apply a new approach to calculate the asymptotic frequencies of mixed modes, which accounts for the so-called near-degeneracy effects and leads to more proper measurements of envelope rotation rates. By fitting these asymptotic expressions to the observations, we obtain measurements of the properties of g modes and mean core and envelope rotation rates. Among 2495 stars with clear mixed-mode patterns, we found that 800 show doublets and 1206 show triplets, doubling the size of pre-existing catalogues. This led us to discover an over-density of stars that narrowly distribute around a well-defined ridge in the plane showing core rotation rate versus evolution along the RGB. With this work, we also increase the sample of stars with measured envelope rotation rates by two orders of magnitude. We find a decreasing trend between envelope rotation rates and evolution, implying that the envelopes slow down with expansion, as expected. We find 243 stars whose envelope rotation rates are significantly larger than zero. For these stars, the core-to-envelope rotation ratios are around 20 and show a large spread with evolution. Several stars show extremely mild differential rotations, with core-to-surface ratios between 1 and 2. These stars also have very slow core rotation rates, suggesting that they go through a peculiar rotational evolution. We also discovered more stars located below the degeneracy sequence, which will provide the opportunity to study the history of possible stellar mergers.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2011

Sounding open clusters: asteroseismic constraints from Kepler on the properties of NGC 6791 and NGC 6819

We present initial results on some of the properties of open clusters NGC 6791 and NGC 6819 derived from asteroseismic data obtained by NASA's Kepler mission. In addition to estimating the mass, radius and log g of stars on the red-giant branch of these clusters, we estimate the distance to the clusters and their ages. Our model-independent estimate of the distance modulus of NGC 6791 is (m-M)_0= 13.11\pm 0.06. We find (m-M)_0= 11.85\pm 0.05 for NGC 6819. The average mass of stars on the red-giant branch of NGC 6791 is 1.20 \pm 0.01 M_sun, while that of NGC 6819 is 1.68\pm 0.03M_sun. It should be noted that we do not have data that cover the entire red-giant branch and the actual mass will be somewhat lower. We have determined model-dependent estimates of ages of these clusters. We find ages between 6.8 and 8.6 Gyr for NGC 6791, however, most sets of models give ages around 7Gyr. We obtain ages between 2 and 2.4 Gyr for NGC 6819.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2011

Mode visibilities in radial velocity and photometric Sun-as-a-star helioseismic observations

We analyze more than 5000 days of high-quality Sun-as-a-star, radial velocity GOLF and photometric VIRGO/SPM helioseismic observations to extract precise estimates of the visibilities of the low-degree p modes and the m-height ratios of the l=2 and 3 multiplets in the solar acoustic spectrum. The mode visibilities are shown to be larger during the GOLF red-wing configuration than during the blue-wing configuration, and to decrease as the wavelength of the VIRGO/SPM channels increases. We also show that the mode visibilities are independent of the solar activity cycle and remain constant overall with time, but that nevertheless they follow short-term fluctuations on a time scale of a few months. The l=1 mode visibility also increases significantly toward the end of the year 1999. Comparisons with theoretical predictions are provided. Even though there is qualitative agreement, some significant discrepancies appear, especially for the l=3 modes. The limb darkening alone cannot explain the relative visibilities of modes. These precise estimates should be used as references for the extraction of the p-mode parameters for any future investigation using the GOLF and VIRGO/SPM observations.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2010

Unveiling stellar magnetic activity using CoRoT seismic observations

It is well known that in the Sun, the frequencies and amplitudes of acoustic modes vary throughout the solar cycle. Indeed, while the magnetic activity goes towards its maximum, the frequencies of the modes increase and their amplitudes decrease. We have analyzed data from the CoRoT mission on a few stars that exhibit solar-like oscillations. The study of HD49933 (observed during 60 days and 137 days spanning a total of 400 days) showed a modulation of the maximum amplitude per radial mode and the frequency shifts of the modes, showing magnetic activity in this rapidly rotating star. Moreover, both properties vary in an anticorrelated way and the data allowed us to establish a lower limit for the activity-cycle period of ~120 days. Measurements in Ca H and K lines confirmed that this star is in the "active stars" category. We will also discuss the results obtained for other targets such as HD181420 and HD49835 for which we have investigated a similar behavior.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2010

CoRoT reveals a magnetic activity cycle in a Sun-like star

The 11-year activity cycle of the Sun is a consequence of a dynamo process occurring beneath its surface. We analyzed photometric data obtained by the CoRoT space mission, showing solar-like oscillations in the star HD49933, for signatures of stellar magnetic activity. Asteroseismic measurements of global changes in the oscillation frequencies and mode amplitudes reveal a modulation of at least 120 days, with the minimum frequency shift corresponding to maximum amplitude as in the Sun. These observations are evidence of a stellar magnetic activity cycle taking place beneath the surface of HD49933 and provide constraints for stellar dynamo models under conditions different from those of the Sun.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2009

Detection of solar-like oscillations from Kepler photometry of the open cluster NGC 6819

Asteroseismology of stars in clusters has been a long-sought goal because the assumption of a common age, distance and initial chemical composition allows strong tests of the theory of stellar evolution. We report results from the first 34 days of science data from the Kepler Mission for the open cluster NGC 6819 -- one of four clusters in the field of view. We obtain the first clear detections of solar-like oscillations in the cluster red giants and are able to measure the large frequency separation and the frequency of maximum oscillation power. We find that the asteroseismic parameters allow us to test cluster-membership of the stars, and even with the limited seismic data in hand, we can already identify four possible non-members despite their having a better than 80% membership probability from radial velocity measurements. We are also able to determine the oscillation amplitudes for stars that span about two orders of magnitude in luminosity and find good agreement with the prediction that oscillation amplitudes scale as the luminosity to the power of 0.7. These early results demonstrate the unique potential of asteroseismology of the stellar clusters observed by Kepler.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2005

GOLF - NG spectrometer, a space prototype for studying the dynamics of the deep solar interior

The GOLFNG (Global Oscillations at Low Frequency New Generation) instrument is devoted to the search for solar gravity and acoustic modes, and also chromospheric modes from space. This instrument which is a successor to GOLF/SOHO will contribute to improve our knowledge of the dynamics of the solar radiative zone. It is a 15 points resonant scattering spectrometer, working on the D1 sodium line. A ground-based prototype is under construction to validate the difficult issues. It will be installed at the Teide Observatory, on Tenerife in 2006 to analyse the separation of the effects of the magnetic turbulence of the line from the solar oscillations. We are prepared to put a space version of this instrument including a capability of identification of the modes, in orbit during the next decade. This instrument should be included in the ILWS program as it offers a key to the improvement of our knowledge of the solar core in combination with observations from SDO and PICARD. We hope to determine the core rotation and magnetic field, through precise measurements of oscillation mode frequency splittings. Understanding the magnetic field of the radiative zone is important for progress in the study of solar activity sources, an important player for the long-term Sun-Earth relationship.

astro-ph↗