gunter's photo
günter houdek
vienna university
University of Vienna
Department of Astrophysics
Asteroseismology
Last Updated: Monday, 29 August 2022, 12:04 GMT

Much of the analysis that has been carried out on the Sun can be transferred to the study of other stars. For example, solar-like oscillations, namely an ensemble of intrinsically stable modes that are excited stochastically by subphotospheric turbulence, have been convincingly observed on other stars, notably aCen A, Procyon, ß Hydri and x Hydrae, and augur asteroseismic diagnosis that will raise stellar physics to a new level of sophistication. It will not be possible to measure either the internal structure or the internal motion of a distant star with a resolution comparable with that which we have achieved for the Sun, because high-degree modes will not be accessible in the foreseeable future; but some theoretically important properties, such as the gross structure of the energy-generating core and the extent to which it is convective, and the large-scale variation of the angular velocity, will become available. Such information will be of crucial importance for checking, and then calibrating, the theory of the structure and evolution of stars. It will then be possible to address issues that until now have been beyond direct investigation, such as the prevalence of apparent supernova progenitors, and, by implication, of supernova, knowledge of which is essential to the study of the chemical evolution of the Galaxy, and thence of the Universe
Location of various pulsating stars in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (kindly provided by J. Christensen-Dalsgaard).

Günter Houdek, Department of Astrophysics, Türkenschanzstr. 17, 1180 Vienna, Austria Tel: +43 (1) 4277 51801 Email:guenter.houdek@univie.ac.at