Thesis

Probing the interior of red giant stars: a new tool for the asteroseismic characterization of large samples of stellar pulsators

• Call:

  IDPASC Portugal - PHD Programme 2014

• Academic Year:

  2014 /2015

• Domain:

  Astrophysics

• Supervisor:

  Margarida Cunha

• Co-Supervisor:

  Pedro Avelino

• Institution:

  Universidade do Porto

• Host Institution:

  Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto

• Abstract:

  As a result of the launch of the CoRoT and Kepler satellites, the astronomical community has, today, exquisite asteroseismic data on thousands of red giant stars. The analysis of just a fraction of these data has already led to a number of very exciting new results, published in high-impact journals, such as Nature and Science. Moreover, given the recent approval by ESA of the mission PLATO2.0 (launch around 2023), it is expected than in a decade the number of red giants with detected oscillations will increase by orders of magnitude. To exploit this large observational sample of stars, further development of asteroseismic theoretical tools is required. In particular, it is imperative that we have tools capable of modelling the pulsations in large grids of red giant models, covering a wide parameter space (in mass, age, metallicity), in a reasonable amount of time. In this context, the main goal of this project is to develop a new linear adiabatic pulsation code, significantly more efficient than those currently available, that may be applied to large grids of red giant models, necessary to fully exploit the available data. Along with the characterization of the red giant populations based on the data already available, the proposed tool will constitute a magnificent step forward towards the preparation for the exploitation of the data that will be acquired by the PLATO2.0 mission.