Related papers: The Future of Computational Asteroseismology
During the last decade, the understanding of fine features of the structure and evolution of stars has become possible as a result of enormous progress made in the acquisition of high-quality observational and experimental data and of new…
Despite the large budgets spent annually on astronomical research equipment such as telescopes, instruments and supercomputers, the general trend is to analyse and view the resulting datasets using small, two-dimensional displays. We report…
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is making a multi-colour, three dimensional map of the nearby Universe. The survey is in two parts. The first part is imaging one quarter of the sky in five colours from the near ultraviolet to the near…
There is an increasing number of large, digital, synoptic sky surveys, in which repeated observations are obtained over large areas of the sky in multiple epochs. Likewise, there is a growth in the number of (often automated or robotic)…
Weak gravitational lensing surveys are rapidly becoming important tools to probe directly the mass density fluctuations in the universe and its background dynamics. Earlier studies have shown that it is possible to model the statistics of…
Rich oscillation spectra of dwarf-like pulsators contain a wealth of information about the object interiors and, in particular, about macroscopic transport processes, which is the most difficult aspect of stellar physics. Examples of…
Helioseismology has provided very detailed information about the solar interior, and extensive data on a large number of stars, although at less detail, are promised by the ongoing and upcoming asteroseismic projects. In the solar case…
In this introductory chapter of the Special Issue entitled `The Structure and Evolution of Stars', we highlight the recent major progress made in our understanding in the physics that governs stellar interiors. In so doing, we combine…
We demonstrate that there is an inherent symmetry in the way high-overtone stellar pulsations sample the core and the envelope, which can potentially lead to an ambiguity in the asteroseismologically derived locations of internal…
Computational astrophysics has undergone unprecedented development over the last decade, becoming a field of its own. The challenge ahead of us will involve increasingly complex multi-scale simulations. These will bridge the gap between…
Dynamical models of star clusters are maturing in the sense that effects other than simple point particle dynamics are taken into account. We summarize the relevance of and prospects for this new generation of N-body models.
The cross-identification of sources in separate catalogs is one of the most basic tasks in observational astronomy. It is, however, surprisingly difficult and generally ill-defined. Recently Budav\'ari & Szalay (2008) formulated the problem…
Understanding the formation, evolution, and chemical diversity of exoplanets are now central areas of astrophysics research. White dwarfs provide a uniquely sensitive laboratory for studying the end stages of planetary-system evolution and…
The formation of Hoag-type galaxies with central spheroidal galaxies and outer stellar rings has yet to be understood in astronomy. We consider that these unique objects were formed from the past interaction between elliptical galaxies and…
We are learning much about how structure forms, in particular how clusters as nodes in the cosmic web evolve and accrete matter, and about the physical processes within these objects. In the next decade, the study of clusters will enable us…
White dwarfs correspond to the final stages of stellar evolution of solar-type stars. In these objects, production of energy by nuclear burning has ended which means that a white dwarf simply cools down over the course of the next billion…
Studies of stellar populations, understood to mean collections of stars with common spatial, kinematic, chemical, and/or age distributions, have been reinvigorated during the last decade by the advent of large-area sky surveys such as SDSS,…
The seismic study of the Sun and other stars offers a unique window into the interior of these stars. Thanks to helioseismology, we know the structure of the Sun to admirable precision. In fact, our knowledge is good enough to use the Sun…
Asteroseismology has opened a window on the internal physics of thousands of stars, by relating oscillation spectra properties to the internal physics of stars. Mode identification, namely the process of associating a measured oscillation…
The polarization of light is a critically under-utilized, rich source of information in astronomy. For stars in particular, surface magnetism polarization that can be detected and measured with spectro-polarimetry. Many questions about…