Detection of solar-like oscillations in the bright red giant stars gamma Piscium and theta(1) Tauri from a 190-day high-precision spectroscopic multi-site campaign

Context. Red giants are evolved stars that exhibit solar-like oscillations. Although a multitude of stars have been observed with space telescopes, only a handful of red giant stars were targets of spectroscopic asteroseismic observing projects. Aims. We search for solar-like oscillations in the two bright red giant stars gamma Psc and theta(1) Tau from a time series of ground-based spectroscopy and determine the frequency of the excess of oscillation power nu(max) and the mean large frequency separation Delta nu for both stars. Seismic constraints on the stellar mass and radius will provide robust input for stellar modelling. Methods. The radial velocities of gamma Psc and theta(1) Tau were monitored for 120 and 190 days, respectively. Nearly 9000 spectra were obtained. To reach accurate radial velocities, we used simultaneous thorium-argon and iodine-cell calibration of our optical spectra. In addition to the spectroscopy, we acquired interferometric observations of gamma Psc for an independent estimate of the radius. We also analysed 22 days of observations of theta(1) Tau with the MOST satellite. Results. The frequency analysis of the radial velocity data of gamma Psc revealed an excess of oscillation power around 32 mu Hz and a large frequency separation of 4.1 +/- 0.1 mu Hz. theta(1) Tau exhibits oscillation power around 90 mu Hz, with a large frequency separation of 6.9 +/- 0.2 mu Hz. Scaling relations indicate that gamma Psc is a star of about 1 M-circle dot and 10 R-circle dot. The object theta(1) Tau appears to be a massive star of about 2.7 M-circle dot and 10 R-circle dot. The radial velocities of both stars were found to be modulated on timescales much longer than the oscillation periods. Conclusions. The estimated radii from seismology are in agreement with interferometric observations and also with estimates based on photometric data. While the mass of theta(1) Tau is in agreement with results from dynamical parallaxes, we find a lower mass for gamma Psc than is found in the literature. The long periodic variability agrees with the expected timescales of rotational modulation.