Talk abstract details

Stars slightly more massive than the sun develop small convective cores during their Main Sequence phase of evolution. The edges of these convective cores are associated with rapid variations in the sound speed which influence the frequencies of acoustic oscillations.

In this work we use an asymptotic analysis that is valid near the turning points of the oscillations, to derive the signature that tiny convective cores, such as those expected in main-sequence solar-like pulsators, produce in the oscillation frequencies. Moreover, we present a seismic diagnostic tool that is capable of isolating that signature, making a direct connection between the data and the physics and dynamics that characterize the convective core, and, hence, also to stellar age.

Given the well known difficulty in detecting modes of degree l=3 in space-based data, and the need of using these modes to construct the diagnostic tool referred above, we further analyse the impact that the derived frequency perturbations have on seismic diagnostic tools that involve only modes of degrees smaller or equal to 2. With recourse to artificial data, we show that these signatures are sufficiently strong to be detectable in space-based data for solar-like pulsators.