Pulsations of rapidly rotating stars I. The ACOR numerical code

Context. Very high precision seismic space missions such as CoRoT and Kepler provide the means of testing the modeling of transport processes in stellar interiors. For some stars, such as solar-like and red giant stars, a rotational splitting is measured. However, to fully exploit these splittings and constrain the rotation profile, one needs to be able to calculate them accurately. For some other stars, such as delta Scuti and Be stars, for instance, the observed pulsation spectra are modified by rotation to such an extent that a perturbative treatment of the effects of rotation is no longer valid. Aims. We present here a new two-dimensional non-perturbative code called ACOR (adiabatic code of oscillation including rotation) that allows us to compute adiabatic non-radial pulsations of rotating stars without making any assumptions on the sphericity of the star, the fluid properties (i.e., baroclinicity) or the rotation profile. Methods. The 2D non-perturbative calculations fully take into account the centrifugal distortion of the star and include the full influence of the Coriolis acceleration. The numerical method is based on a spectral approach for the angular part of the modes and a fourth-order finite differences approach for the radial part. Results. We test and evaluate the accuracy of the calculations by comparing them with those coming from the TOP (two-dimensional oscillation program) for the same polytropic models. We illustrate the effects of rapid rotation on stellar pulsations through the phenomenon of avoided crossings. Conclusions. As shown by the comparison with the TOP for simple models, the code is stable, and gives accurate results up to near-critical rotation rates.