Early asteroseismic results from Kepler

This is the first time that g-mode seismology can be exploited quantitatively for stars on the extreme horizontal branch, all previous successful seismic analyses having been confined so far to short-period, p-mode pulsators. We demonstrate that current models of hot B subdwarfs can quite well explain the observed g-mode periods, while being consistent with independent constraints provided by spectroscopy.

We identify the 18 pulsations retained in our analysis as low-degree ({l}=1 and 2), intermediate-order (k=-9 through -58) g-modes. The periods (frequencies) are recovered, on average, at the 0.22% level, which is comparable to the best results obtained for p-mode pulsators. We infer the following structural and core parameters for KPD 1943+4058 (formal fitting uncertainties only): T_eff_=28050+/-470K, logg=5.52+/-0.03, M_*_=0.496+/-0.002M_{sun}_, log(M_env_/M*)=-2.55+/-0.07, log(1-M_core_/M_*_)=-0.3+/-0.01, and X_core_(C+O)=0.261+/-0.008.