AAS 205th Meeting, 9-13 January 2005
Session 14 Variable Stars and Stellar Oscillations
Poster, Monday, January 10, 2005, 9:20am-6:30pm, Exhibit Hall

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[14.07] New WIRE Detections of Oscillations in K Giants

H. L. Preston (US Air Force Academy & UNISA), H. Bruntt (Copenhagen University & US Air Force Academy), D. L. Buzasi (US Air Force Academy)

WIRE observations of K giants (e.g., \alpha Boo, Retter et al. 2004) have revealed the presence of low-level variability in some K giants which is at least quasi-periodic, and which is suggestive of p-mode oscillations. In 2004 (Preston, Bruntt and Buzasi, Cool Stars 13), we presented new WIRE oscillation data for five K giants, some of which were strongly periodic. These were serendipitous WIRE targets: the four brightest background stars in each WIRE target field are designated ``secondary targets,'' and these data constitute an unbiased sample of bright field stars – necessarily these will include a large percentage of K giants.

In this paper, we present the second set of results from this unbiased sample of late-type giants observed by WIRE. Specifically, we present photometric data and preliminary periodograms for a number of K giants observed by WIRE within the last year. Oscillations have previously been quite hard to observe in K giants.


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© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.