Probing the Interiors of Massive Stars with Asteroseismology

by Ms. Noi Shitrit

TAU

at Astrophysics and Cosmology Seminar

Wed, 12 Nov 2025, 11:10
Sacta-Rashi Building for Physics (54), room 207

Abstract

Massive stars are the progenitors of many astrophysical systems and key to understanding many astrophysical processes, yet important aspects of their structure and evolution are not well understood. Asteroseismology, the study of stellar pulsations, is a unique way to probe the interiors of stars. However, doing so for massive stars is observationally challenging, with the first such study taking 20 years to resolve the six main pulsation modes for a single star. Long-term continuous observations can reduce this time span, but require either space-based campaigns (which currently produce only single-band data, which is not enough for full asteroseismic modeling), or global coordination between ground-based telescopes (which has been difficult to scale to many stars). This is why to date, fewer than 10 massive stars have been fully modeled through asteroseismology. Using a global network of identical robotically-coordinated telescopes, we are tripling this sample within 3 years. This will help move the field of massive-star asteroseismology from single case studies to population analyses. I will present our observational and modeling methods and show some initial results. If time allows, I will also present a complementary method and tool we're developing for constraining massive-star physics - through their supernovae - allowing to probe the latest stages of their evolution.

Created on 08-11-2025 by Zitrin, Adi (zitrin)
Updaded on 08-11-2025 by Zitrin, Adi (zitrin)