http://arxiv.org/abs/1912.12300
Years-long high-precision brightness measurements assembled with telescopes operating in space have become available for thousands of stars. Such data made it possible to measure the physics of stellar interiors via nonradial oscillations, opening a new avenue to study the stars in the Universe. Asteroseismology, the interpretation of the characteristics of oscillation modes in terms of the physical properties of the stellar interior, brought entirely new insights in how stars rotate and how they build up their chemistry throughout their evolution. We discuss how data-driven space asteroseismology has allowed us to improve our knowledge of stellar physics. This delivered a drastic increase in the reliability of computer models mimicking the evolution of stars born with a variety of masses and metalicities. Such models are critical ingredients for modern physics as a whole, because they are used throughout various contemporary and multidisciplinary research fields in space science, including the search for life outside the solar system, archeological studies of the Milky Way, and supernova explosions of single and binary stars, among which future gravitational wave sources. We illustrate the specific role and potential of asteroseismology for those modern research fields. We end with current limitations of asteroseismology and highlight how they can be overcome with ongoing and future large infrastructures for survey astronomy combined with new theoretical research in the era of high-performance computing. This review presents some of the results obtained thanks to major community efforts over the past decade. These breakthroughs were achieved in a collaborative and inclusive spirit so characteristic of the asteroseismology community. The aim was to write it in a way so as to make this research field well accessible.
C. Aerts
Wed, 1 Jan 20
60/88
Comments: 77 pages, 22 figures (downgraded in resolution to meet the arXiv limits). Invited manuscript submitted to the journal Reviews of Modern Physics, summarizing a decade of space asteroseismology, written for a non-expert broad readership. Comments from the community are welcomed by the author
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