Radiation-hydrodynamics simulations of surface convection in low-mass stars: connections to stellar structure and asteroseismology

Radiation-hydrodynamical simulations of surface convection in low-mass stars can be exploited to derive estimates of i) the efficiency of the convective energy transport in the stellar surface layers; ii) the convection-related photometric micro-variability. We comment on the universality of the mixing-length parameter, and point out potential pitfalls in the process of its calibration which may be in part responsible for the contradictory findings about its variability across the Hertzsprung-Russell digramme. We further comment on the modelling of the photometric micro-variability in HD49933 - one of the first main COROT targets.