Related papers: Asteroseismology for the Masses
The quest to comprehend how nuclear processes influence astrophysical phenomena is driving experimental and theoretical research programs worldwide. One of the main goals in nuclear astrophysics is to understand how energy is generated in…
Asteroseismology of bright stars with well-determined properties from parallax measurements and interferometry can yield precise stellar ages and meaningful constraints on the composition. We substantiate this claim with an updated…
Neutron stars are compact and dense celestial objects that offer the unique opportunity to explore matter and its interactions under conditions that cannot be reproduced elsewhere in the Universe. Their extreme gravitational, rotational and…
In this lecture, we give a first introduction to neutron stars, based on fundamental physical principles. After outlining their amazing macroscopic properties, as obtained from observations, we infer the extreme conditions of matter in…
We discuss some of our current knowledge of the mass distribution of DA and non-DA stars using various methods for measuring white dwarf masses including spectroscopic, trigonometric parallax, and gravitational redshift measurements, with a…
Many low-mass white dwarfs are being discovered in the field of our galaxy and some of them exhibit $g$-mode pulsations, comprising the extremely low-mass variable (ELMV) stars class. Despite it is generally believed that these stars are…
The simple physics of microlensing provides a well-understood tool with which to probe the atmospheres of distant stars in the Galaxy and Local Group with high magnification and resolution. Recent results in measuring stellar surface…
For many years, astronomers have promised that the study of pulsating white dwarfs would ultimately lead to useful information about the physics of matter under extreme conditions of temperature and pressure. We can now make good on that…
We present detailed theoretical mass-radius relations for massive white dwarf stars with oxygen-neon cores. This work is motivated by recent observational evidence about the existence of white dwarf stars with very high surface gravities.…
Interacting binaries containing white dwarfs can lead to a variety of outcomes that range from powerful thermonuclear explosions, which are important in the chemical evolution of galaxies and as cosmological distance estimators, to strong…
A non negligible fraction of white dwarf stars show the presence of heavy elements in their atmospheres. The most accepted explanation for this contamination is the accretion of material coming from tidally disrupted planetesimals, which…
Massive stars are at the core of our observations of the Universe up to the reionization epoch, both through their intense ionizing fluxes and through the energetic end products that release fresh elements into the interstellar medium. Our…
WFIRST microlensing observations will return high-precision parallaxes, sigma(pi) < 0.3 microarcsec, for the roughly 1 million stars with H<14 in its 2.8 deg^2 field toward the Galactic bulge. Combined with its 40,000 epochs of high…
The observational basis for asteroseismology is being dramatically strengthened, through more than two years of data from the CoRoT satellite, the flood of data coming from the Kepler mission and, in the slightly longer term, from dedicated…
Since few decades, asteroseismology, the study of stellar oscillations, enables us to probe the interiors of stars with great precision. It allows stringent tests of stellar models and can provide accurate radii, masses and ages for…
MATISSE represents a great opportunity to image the environment around massive and evolved stars. This will allow one to put constraints on the circumstellar structure, on the mass ejection of dust and its reorganization , and on the…
Cosmological and astrophysical measurements provide powerful constraints on neutrino masses complementary to those from accelerators and reactors. Here we provide a guide to these different probes, for each explaining its physical basis,…
In the past four decades a new type of astronomy has emerged, where instead of looking up into the sky "telescopes" are buried miles underground or deep under water or ice and search not for photons (that is, light), but rather for…
We observe photons and neutrinos from stars. Based on these observations, complemented by measurements of cosmic rays energies and composition, we have been able to constrain several models for the Big Bang and for stellar evolution. But…
Asteroseismology is a unique tool that can be used to study the interior of stars and hence deliver unique information for the studiy of stellar physics, stellar evolution, and Galactic archaeology. We aim to develop a simple model of the…