EPRV Asteroseismology of the K dwarfs GJ 570 A and GJ 783 A with ESPRESSO. Empirical mode-amplitude scaling in tension with 3D convection simulations

Abstract

Solar-like oscillations in K dwarfs have intrinsically low amplitudes, making them challenging to detect in space-based photometry. The advent of Extremely Precise Radial Velocity (EPRV) instrumentation enables Doppler asteroseismology in the mid-K regime, providing a new opportunity to test mode-excitation and damping physics. We investigate the scaling of oscillation amplitudes with stellar parameters and assess whether 3D surface convection simulations reproduce the observed amplitude behavior. High-cadence ESPRESSO radial-velocity time series were obtained over five and six consecutive nights for the K dwarfs GJ 570 A (K4 V) and GJ 783 A (K2.5 V), respectively. We identified oscillation modes from weighted power spectra and extracted them via sine-wave fitting following spectral deconvolution. Peak mode amplitudes were measured from heavily smoothed power spectra. For comparison, we performed 3D radiative-hydrodynamical simulations including excitation and damping-rate calculations. We measured 6 modes for GJ 570 A and 24 for GJ 783 A ($\ell=0$-$2$, and $\ell=3$ for GJ 783 A). The peak radial-mode amplitudes are $2.57 \pm 0.52\:{\rm cm\,s^{-1}}$ and $4.90 \pm 0.81\:{\rm cm\,s^{-1}}$, respectively. These results support a transition from an $\sim(L/M)^{0.7}$ amplitude scaling to a steeper $\sim(L/M)^{1.5}$ scaling, occurring near the G/K-dwarf boundary toward decreasing $L/M$. In contrast, 3D simulations predict an $\sim(L/M)^{0.9}$ scaling for K dwarfs, revealing tension between observations and first-principles convection models. EPRV asteroseismology extends into the mid-K regime and exposes a steep mode-amplitude scaling that our 3D convection simulations do not reproduce. This discrepancy points to missing physics in our implementation of convection-pulsation coupling and/or limitations in the adopted modeling assumptions, motivating further theoretical investigation.