We report the results of our analysis of six gravity-mode pulsating hot subdwarf stars observed in the short cadence mode by Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. We detected at least 10 pulsation periods in each star, searched for multiplets, and used an asymptotic period spacing to identify modes. We used a grid of evolutionary and pulsation models calculated with the MESA and GYRE, along with spectroscopic parameters and modal degree identification, to derive the physical properties of the stars. We checked the relation between the helium content and pulsations and found that no pulsator exists among the extremely helium-rich hot subdwarfs, while the number of detected pulsators in other helium groups increases as the helium content decreases. We found p- and g-mode hot subdwarfs pulsators in all Galactic populations.

GravityCam is a new concept of ground-based imaging instrument capable of delivering significantly sharper images from the ground than is normally possible without adaptive optics. Advances in optical and near-infrared imaging technologies allow images to be acquired at high speed without significant noise penalty. Aligning these images before they are combined can yield a 2.5–3-fold improvement in image resolution. By using arrays of such detectors, survey fields may be as wide as the telescope optics allows. Consequently, GravityCam enables both wide-field high-resolution imaging and high-speed photometry. We describe the instrument and detail its application to provide demographics of planets and satellites down to Lunar mass (or even below) across the Milky Way. GravityCam is also suited to improve the quality of weak shear studies of dark matter distribution in distant clusters of galaxies and multiwavelength follow-ups of background sources that are strongly lensed by galaxy clusters. The photometric data arising from an extensive microlensing survey will also be useful for asteroseismology studies, while GravityCam can be used to monitor fast multiwavelength flaring in accreting compact objects and promises to generate a unique data set on the population of the Kuiper belt and possibly the Oort cloud.

Continuous and precise space-based photometry has made it possible to measure the orbital frequency modulation of pulsating stars in binary systems with extremely high precision over long time spans. We present the phase modulation (PM) method for finding binaries among pulsating stars. We demonstrate how the orbital elements of a pulsating binary star can be obtained analytically from photometry alone, without spectroscopic radial velocity measurement. Frequency modulation (FM) caused by binary orbital motion also manifests itself in the Fourier transform, as a multiplet with equal spacing of the orbital frequency. The orbital parameters can also be extracted by analysing the amplitudes and phases of the peaks in these multiplets. We derive analytically the theoretical relations between the multiplet properties and the orbital parameters, and present a method for determining these parameters, including the eccentricity and the argument of periapsis. This, too, is achievable with the photometry alone, without spectroscopic radial velocity measurements. We apply these two methods to Kepler mission data and demonstrate that the results are in good agreement with each other. These methods are used to search for invisible binary companions, including planets and invisible massive objects such as neutron stars and stellar-mass black holes.

Stars are massive resonators that may be used as gravitational-wave (GW) detectors with isotropic sensitivity. New insights on stellar physics are being made possible by asteroseismology, the study of stars by the observation of their natural oscillations. The continuous monitoring of oscillation modes in stars of different masses and sizes (e.g., as carried out by NASA's Kepler mission) opens the possibility of surveying the local Universe for GW radiation. Red-giant stars are of particular interest in this regard. Since the mean separation between red giants in open clusters is small (a few light years), this can in principle be used to look for the same GW imprint on the oscillation modes of different stars as a GW propagates across the cluster. Furthermore, the frequency range probed by oscillations in red giants complements the capabilities of the planned eLISA space interferometer. We propose asteroseismology of red giants as a novel approach in the search for gravitational waves.

During Kepler's main mission, nearly 20 pulsating subdwarf B (sdB: extreme horizontal branch stars) were discovered. Many of these stars were observed for three years, accumulating over 1.5 million observations. Only through these extended observations have we been able to identify pulsation modes, applying constraints for structure models. Discoveries include nearly-evenly-spaced asymptotic period overtones which represent the interior structure and rotationally-induced frequency multiplets from which we have learned that rotation periods are long, even when in short-period binaries. This paper reviews progress on observational constraints and highlights some of our discoveries including radially differential rotation, conflicting stratification indicators and mode lifetimes.

We have recently computed a grid of 3D radiation-hydrodynamical simulations for the atmosphere of pure-hydrogen DA white dwarfs in the range 5.0 < log g < 9.0. Our grid covers the full ZZ Ceti instability strip where pulsating DA white dwarfs are located. We have significantly improved the theoretical framework to study these objects by removing the free parameters of 1D convection, which were previously a major modeling hurdle. We present improved atmospheric parameter determinations based on spectroscopic fits with 3D model spectra, allowing for an updated definition of the empirical edges of the ZZ Ceti instability strip. Our 3D simulations also precisely predict the depth of the convection zones, narrowing down the internal layers where pulsation are being driven. We hope that these 3D effects will be included in asteroseismic models in the future to predict the region of the HR diagram where white dwarfs are expected to pulsate.

Asteroseismology has been proven to be a successful tool to unravel details of the internal structure for different types of stars in various stages of evolution well after birth. We can now show that it has similar power for pre-main sequence (pre-MS) objects. Pre-MS stars with masses between ~1 and 6 solar masses that have recently been formed and gain their energy mainly from gravitational contraction can become vibrationally unstable during their evolution to the main sequence. Within the past ~15 years, several dozens of pulsating pre-MS stars were discovered using data obtained from ground and from space. Depending on their masses, pre-MS stars can show three different types of pulsations: (i) δ Scuti type p-mode pulsations, (ii) γ Doradus like g-mode oscillations and (iii) g-mode Slowly Pulsating B star pulsations.

Our asteroseismic investigations yielded new insights into the connection between the pulsations and early stellar evolution: We revealed a relation between the stars' oscillatory behavior and their relative evolutionary stages that might lead us to a model-independent determination of the stars' fundamental parameters. With this we will be able to put constraints on theoretical models and help to answer some of the yet open questions in early stellar evolution.

The availability of asteroseismic constraints for a large sample of red-giant stars from the CoRoT and Kepler missions paves the way for various statistical studies of the seismic properties of stellar populations. We use a detailed spectroscopic study of 19 CoRoT red-giant stars (Morel et al. 2014) to compare theoretical stellar evolution models to observations of the open cluster NGC 6633 and field stars. This study is already published in Lagarde et al. (2015)

Measuring the obliquities of exoplanet-host stars provides invaluable diagnostic information for theories of planetary formation and migration. Most of these results have so far been obtained by measuring the Rossiter--McLaughlin effect, clearly favoring systems that harbor hot Jupiters. While it would be extremely helpful to extend these measurements to long-period and multiple-planet systems, it is also true that the latter systems tend to involve smaller planets, making it ever so difficult to apply such techniques. Asteroseismology provides a powerful method of determining the inclination of the stellar spin axis from an analysis of the rotationally-induced splittings of the oscillation modes. This provides an estimate of the obliquity independently of other methods. The applicability of the asteroseismic method is determined by the stellar properties and not by the signal-to-noise ratio of the transit data. Here we present a recap of the spin-orbit geometry, explain how the asteroseismic method works, and review previous applications of the method to exoplanet-host stars.

Measuring the obliquities of exoplanet-host stars provides invaluable diagnostic information for theories of planetary formation and migration. Most of these results have so far been obtained by measuring the Rossiter–McLaughlin effect, clearly favoring systems that harbor hot Jupiters. While it would be extremely helpful to extend these measurements to long-period and multiple-planet systems, it is also true that the latter systems tend to involve smaller planets, making it ever so difficult to apply such techniques. Asteroseismology provides a powerful method of determining the inclination of the stellar spin axis — from an analysis of the rotationally-induced splittings of the oscillation modes — whose applicability is ultimately determined by the stellar parameters and not by the signal-to-noise ratio of the transit data. Here we present the first statistical analysis of an ensemble of asteroseismic obliquity measurements obtained for solar-type stars with transiting planets. The sample consists of 25 Kepler planet-candidate host stars, 14 of which are multi-transiting systems. We seek empirical constraints on the spin-orbit alignment of exoplanet systems and discuss the implications for theories of planetary formation and migration.

Mass discrepancy is one of the problems that is pending a solution in (massive) binary star research field. The problem is often solved by introducing an additional near core mixing into evolutionary models, which brings theoretical masses of individual stellar components into an agreement with the dynamical ones. In the present study, we perform a detailed analysis of two massive binary systems, V380 Cyg and σ Sco, to provide an independent, asteroseismic measurement of the overshoot parameter, and to test state-of-the-art stellar evolution models.

After highlighting the principle and power of asteroseismology for stellar physics, we briefly emphasize some recent progress in this research for various types of stars. We give an overview of high-precision high duty-cycle space photometry of OB-type stars. Further, we update the overview of seismic estimates of stellar parameters of OB dwarfs, with specific emphasis on convective core overshoot. We discuss connections between pulsational, rotational, and magnetic variability of massive stars and end with future prospects for asteroseismology of evolved OB stars.

Semi-convection is a slow mixing process in chemically-inhomogeneous radiative interiors of stars. In massive OB stars, it is important during the main sequence. However, the efficiency of this mixing mechanism is not properly gauged yet. Here, we argue that asteroseismology of β Cep pulsators is capable of distinguishing between models of varying semi-convection efficiencies. We address this in the light of upcoming high-precision space photometry to be obtained with the Kepler two-wheel mission for massive stars along the ecliptic.

During the past decades, stellar oscillations and exoplanet searches were developed in parallel, and the observations were done with the same instruments: radial velocity method, essentially with ground-based instruments, and photometric methods (light curves) from space. The same observational data on one star could lead to planet discoveries at large time scales (days to years) and to the detection of stellar oscillations at small time scales (minutes), such as for the star μ Arae. Since the beginning, it seemed interesting to investigate the differences between stars with and without observed planets. Also, a precise determination of the stellar parameters is important to characterize the detected exoplanets. With the thousands of exoplanet candidates discovered by Kepler, automatic procedures and pipelines are needed with large data bases to characterize the central stars. However, precise asteroseismic studies of well-chosen stars are still important for a deeper insight.

We developed an advanced binary system model that includes stellar oscillations on one or both stars, with the goal of mode identification by fitting of the photometric light curves. The oscillations are modeled as perturbations of the local surface temperature and the local gravitational potential. In the case of tidally distorted stars, it is assumed that the pulsation axis coincides with the direction connecting the centers of the components rather than with the rotation axis. The mode identification method, originally devised by B. Bíró, is similar to eclipse mapping in that it utilizes the amplitude, phase and frequency modulation of oscillations during the eclipse; but the identification is achieved by grid-fitting of the observed light curve rather than by image reconstruction. The proposed model and the mode identification method have so far been tested on synthetic data with encouraging results.

The highly successful SuperWASP planetary transit finding programme has surveyed a large fraction of both the northern and southern skies. There now exists in its archive over 420 billion photometric measurements for more than 31 million stars. SuperWASP provides good quality photometry with a precision exceeding 1% per observation in the approximate magnitude range 9 < V < 12. The archive enables long-baseline, high-cadence studies of stellar variability to be undertaken. An overview of the SuperWASP project is presented, along with results which demonstrate the survey's asteroseismic capabilities.

The searches for transiting exoplanets have produced a vast amount of time-resolved photometric data of many millions of stars. One of the leading ground-based surveys is the SuperWASP project. We present the initial results of a survey of over 1.5 million A-type stars in the search for high frequency pulsations using SuperWASP photometry. We are able to detect pulsations down to the 0.5 mmag level in the broad-band photometry. This has enabled the discovery of several rapidly oscillating Ap stars and over 200 δ Scuti stars with frequencies above 50 d−1, and at least one pulsating sdB star. Such a large number of results allows us to statistically study the frequency overlap between roAp and δ Scuti stars and probe to higher frequency regimes with existing data.

Although the κ mechanism of pulsations is known for early-type stars, opacities and the equation of state are still uncertain. Stellar models calculated for the OP data implemented with the new Kurucz opacities at log T < 5.2 were investigated for different chemical compositions of elements. The additional metallic opacity bump at log T ≈ 5.06 that occurs in the Kurucz data changes markedly the oscillation spectra of unstable modes. Basic properties of the new opacity bump and examples of seismic models are shown. B-type stars observed in the Galaxy, LMC and SMC were considered. The problem was studied using Dziembowski's computing codes for linear, non-adiabatic and non-radial oscillations.

Asteroseismic investigations, particularly based on data on stellar oscillations from the CoRoT and Kepler space missions, are providing unique possibilities for investigating the properties of stellar interiors. This constitutes entirely new ways to study the effects of dynamic phenomena on stellar structure and evolution. Important examples are the extent of convection zones and the associated mixing and the direct and indirect effects of stellar rotation. In addition, the stellar oscillations themselves show very interesting dynamic behaviour. Here we discuss examples of the results obtained from such investigations, across the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram.

The Sun is unique amongst stars in having a precisely determined age which does not depend on the modelling of stellar evolution. Furthermore, other global properties of the Sun are known to much higher accuracy than for any other star. Also, helioseismology has provided detailed determination of the solar internal structure and rotation. As a result, the Sun plays a central role in the development and test of stellar modelling. Here I discuss solar modelling and its application to tests of asteroseismic techniques for stellar age determination.