Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union

Table of Contents - 2010 - Volume 6, Symposium S272 (Active OB stars: structure, evolution, mass loss, and critical limits)  

Contributed Papers

Asteroseismic observations of OB stars

Peter De Cata1, Katrien Uytterhoevena2, Juan Gutiérrez-Sotoa3, Pieter Degrootea4 and Sergio Simón-Díaza5

a1 Royal observatory of Belgium, Ringlaan 3, B-1180 Brussel, Belgium email: Peter.DeCat@oma.be

a2 Lab. AIM, CEA/DSM-CNRS-Université Paris Diderot, CEA, IRFU, SAp, Saclay, 91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France email: katrien.uytterhoeven@cea.fr

a3 Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC), Apartado 3004, 18080 Granada, Spain email: jgs@iaa.es

a4 Instituut voor Sterrenkunde, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium email: Pieter.Degroote@ster.kuleuven.be

a5 Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain email: ssimon@iac.es

Abstract

The region of the hot end of the main-sequence is hosting pulsating stars of different types and flavours. Pulsations are not only observed for Slowly pulsating B stars (mid to late B-type stars; high order g-modes) and β Cephei stars (early B-type stars; low order p/g-modes) but are also causing variability in Be stars and OB-supergiants. In this review we give an overview of the asteroseismic observations that are currently available for these types of stars. The first asteroseismic results were solely based on ground-based observations. Recently, the arrival of space-based data gathered by space missions like most, corot and kepler has led to important discoveries for massive stars, highlighting their excellent asteroseismic potential. We show that, despite the unprecedented precision of the space-based data, there is still a clear need for ground-based follow-up observations.

Keywords

  • stars: early-type;
  • stars: emission-line;
  • Be;
  • stars: variables: other;
  • stars: oscillations (including pulsations)