Paper detail

Seismic detection of acoustic sharp features in the CoRoT target HD49933

The technique of determining the acoustic location of layers of sharp changes in the sound speed inside a star from the oscillatory signal in its frequencies is applied on a solar-type star, the CoRoT target, HD49933. We are able to determine the acoustic depth of the second helium ionisation zone of HD49933 to be 794 +55/-68 seconds. The acoustic depth of the base of the convective zone is found to be 1855 +173/-412 seconds where the large error bars reflect the ambiguity in the result, which is difficult to determine with present precision on the frequencies because of the intrinsically weak nature of the signal. The positions of both these layers are consistent with those in a representative stellar model of HD49933.