New advances in asteroseismology of pulsating hot subdwarf stars

Abstract

Hot subdwarf stars (of the sdB and sdO type) host three known classes of nonradial pulsators. Two of them feature short period (P ~ 60 - 600 s) accoustic mode oscillations, while the third group is characterized by slow g-mode deformations with periods of ~ 1 - 2h. These pulsations offer favorable grounds to infer some of the internal properties of these objects through asteroseismology. This has been exploited for the rapid p-mode sdB pulsators and the present contribution reviews some of the recent advances in this field. The long period g-mode pulsators, whose vibrations probe much deeper inside the star, are also of high interest. With the advent of space observations using CoRoT and KEPLER, the asteroseismology of these slower oscillators will also become a possibility, and likely contribute to significant breakthroughs in our understanding of these hot and compact stars.