Asteroseismology by Aerts, C.; Christensen-Dalsgaard, J.; Kurtz, D. W.;

Hosszú leírás:

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 unknownaspects 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.

Asteroseismology refers to the study of the internal structure of pulsating stars through the interpretation of their frequency spectra. This is the first book available on the subject and offers a practical guide for graduate students or scientists working in the growing field of stellar astrophysics. Asteroseismology is the only available method so far to derive the internal structure of the stars with high precision. The basic principles are very much like those developed by earth seismologists. This book provides a general introduction into the research area of asteroseismology, covering all aspects from observations, methodology for data analysis, up to seismic interpretations of stars.

Tartalomjegyzék:

Preface.- 1 Introducing asteroseismology.- 2 Stellar oscillations across the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram.- 3 Theory of stellar oscillations.- 4 Observational techniques.- 5 Frequency analysis.- 6 Modeidentification.- 7 Applications of asteroseismology.- 8 Thefuture.- Bibliography.- A Summary of the different classes of stellar pulsators.- B Properties of Legendre functions and spherical harmonics.- C Mathematical preliminaries.- D Adiabatic oscillations in an isothermal atmosphere.- E Asymptotic theory of stellar oscillations.- Subject index.- Object index.- Acronym definition index.