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.

Autorentext

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.

Klappentext

The recent research domain of asteroseismology studies the internal structure of stars, which is not directly observable, through the interpretation of the frequency spectra of stellar oscillations. The basic principles of asteroseismology are very similar to those developed by earth seismologists. Stellar interiors can be probed from oscillations because different oscillation modes penetrate to different depths inside the star. Asteroseismology is the only available method to derive the internal structure of the stars with high precision.

This book the first on asteroseismology offers a practical guide for graduate students and scientists working in stellar astrophysics. It provides a general introduction to asteroseismology and comprehensive coverage of all its aspects: fundamental theory, observations and observational techniques, methodology of data analysis and seismic interpretations of various classes of multi-periodic pulsating stars.

Zusammenfassung
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.

Inhalt

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.