Asteroseismic Inference for Solar-type Stars

The oscillation spectra of solar-type stars may in the not-too-distant future be used to constrain certain properties of the stars. The CD diagram of large versus small frequency separations is one of the powerful tools available to infer the properties – including perhaps masses and ages – of stars which display a detectable spectrum of oscillation. Also, the border of a convective region in a solar-type star gives rise to a characteristic periodic signal in the star's low-degree p-mode frequencies. Such a signature contains information about the location and nature of the transition between convective and non-convective regions in the star. In this work we address some of the uncertainties associated with the direct use of the CD diagram to evaluate the mass and age of the star due to the unknown contributions that make the stars different from the evolutionary models used to construct our reference grid. We also explore the possibility of combining an amplitude versus period diagram with the CD diagram to evaluate the properties of convective borders within solar-type stars.