Asteroseismology of the planet-hosting star μ Arae. I. The acoustic spectrum

We present HARPS spectroscopy of mu Arae (HD160691) performed for studying the origin of the metallicity excess in this planet-hosting stars. The asteroseismologic campaign led to the previously reported discovery of a 14 earth mass planetary companion (Santos et al. 2004). The present analysis reinforces this interpretation by excluding other possible processes for explaining the observed Doppler variation and leads to the identification of up to 43 p-mode oscillations with l=0-3, frequencies in the range 1.3-2.5 mHz and amplitudes in the range 10-40 cm/s.