Asteroseismology

C. Aerts · J. Christensen-Dalsgaard · D. W. Kurtz

jan 2010 · Springer Science & Business Media

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Understanding the stars is the bedrock of modern astrophysics. Stars are the source of life. The chemical enrichment of our Milky Way and of the Universe withallelementsheavierthanlithiumoriginatesintheinteriorsofstars.Stars arethe tracersofthe dynamics ofthe Universe,gravitationallyimplying much more than meets the eye. Stars ionize the interstellar medium and re-ionized the early intergalactic medium. Understanding stellar structure and evolution is fundamental. While stellar structure and evolution are understood in general terms, we lack important physical ingredients, despite extensive research during recent decades.Classicalspectroscopy,photometry,astrometryandinterferometryof stars have traditionally been used as observational constraints to deduce the internal stellar physics. Unfortunately, these types of observations only allow the tuning of the basic common physics laws under stellar conditions with relatively poor precision. The situation is even more worrisome for unknown aspects of the physics and dynamics in stars. These are usually dealt with by using parameterised descriptions of, e.g., the treatments of convection, rotation,angularmomentumtransport,theequationofstate,atomicdi?usion andsettlingofelements,magneto-hydrodynamicalprocesses,andmore.There is a dearth of observational constraints on these processes, thus solar values areoftenassignedtothem.Yetitishardtoimaginethatonesetofparameters is appropriate for the vast range of stars.

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Conny Aerts is full professor at the University of Leuven, Belgium, as well as professor by special appointment on the Chair Asteroseismology, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard is full professor of helio- and asteroseismology at Aarhus University, Denmark. Don Kurtz is full professor at the University of Central Lancashire, UK.
Their collective expertise encompasses all aspects of asteroseismology. All three authors are experienced lecturers and participate in numerous scientific committees. Their research teams enjoy international recognition and are heavily involved in various ground-based and satellite projects on asteroseismology.