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Evidence for Solar-like Oscillations in Arcturus (Alpha Boo)

Alon Retter, Timothy R. Bedding, Derek Buzasi, Hans Kjeldsen

astro-pharXiv:astro-ph/0208518

Abstract

Observations of the red giant Arcturus (Alpha Boo) obtained with the star tracker on the Wide Field Infrared Explorer (WIRE) satellite during a baseline of 19 successive days in 2000 July-August are analysed. The power spectrum has a significant excess of power at low-frequencies. The highest peak is at about 4.1 micro-Hz, which is in agreement with the ground-based radial velocity and photometry study of Belmonte et al. (1990a; 1990b). The variability of Arcturus can be explained by sound waves, but it is not clear whether these are coherent p-mode oscillations.

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