Communications in Asteroseismology, Vol. 155 (October 2008)

The publication series of Communications in Asteroseismology (CoAst) is one of the most important international journals in the field of asteroseismology. Asteroseismology is the science concerned with stellar pulsation. Every six months, CoAst publishes a newsletter with papers about the latest results and ongoing research projects. Besides these regular issues, special issues such as conference proceedings or software manuals are published in this series. CoAst volume 155 contains two manuals of software tools dedicated to asteroseismology: the web interface DAS (Database AsteroSeismology) and the software package FAMIAS (Frequency Analysis and Mode Identification for Asteroseismology). Both tools have been developed in the framework of European Helio- and Asteroseismology Network (HELAS), which was founded and is funded by the EU. The aim of the FAMIAS / DAS packages is to enable user-friendly access to state of the art methods for asteroseismology. Successful asteroseismology of stars on the main sequence hotter than the sun is highly dependent on the knowledge of the surface structure of pulsational modes, by means of mode identification. Mode identification can be derived from modeling the luminosity variations of the star in several photometric filters and intensity variations in the profile of absorption lines. FAMIAS is a sophisticated tool for the analysis of spectroscopic and photometric time series to find pulsational modes and the corresponding pulsational quantum numbers: the degree l and the azimutal order m. The database DAS contains a well documented library of light curves and spectroscopic time series data of selected pulsating stars. Together with FAMIAS, it provides a complete package of tools for mode identification to researchers as well as to students, working on the field of asteroseismology. This volume is the printed version of the two manuals and is funded by the EU.