Cool Stars 14 - Submitted Abstract # 5
This version created on 05 October 2006

Pulsations detected in the line profile variations of red giants


Saskia Hekker, Leiden Observatory
Conny Aerts, Instituut voor Sterrenkunde, KU Leuven / University of Nijmegen 
Joris De Ridder, Instituut voor Sterrenkunde, KU Leuven
Fabien Carrier, Instituut voor Sterrenkunde, KU Leuven / Observatoire de Geneve

So far, red giant oscillations have been studied using radial-velocity
and / or light curve variations, which reveal frequencies of the
oscillation modes.  To characterise radial and non-radial
oscillations, line profile variations are a valuable diagnostic.  Here
we present for the first time a line-profile analysis of pulsating red
giants.  The main difficulaties encountered are the small line profile
variations and the predicted short damping and re-excitation times in
red giants.  Two line diagnostics have been tested to see whether
these are sensitive to the small line profile variations present in
red giants.  In addition, line profiles are simulated with short
damping and re-excitation times and compared with the observations.
The comparison between the observations and simulations reveals that
radial as well as non-radial modes are visible in the line profile
variations, while only radial modes were predicted.

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