Connie Aerts, KU Leuven

Bridging Statistical Modelling and Starquakes: Asteroseismology

Abstract:

After an introduction in the study of starquakes for the non-expert, we reveal why the 4-year long uninterrupted data from the NASA Kepler space telescope implies a revolution in astrophysics.  We highlight how stellar oscillations, aka starquakes, allow to probe the interior physics of stars to a level that no other method can. The mathematical modelling tools applied in this research domain involve supervised clustering, time-series analysis, maximum likelihood estimation and model selection.  We illustrate applications of these four techniques to the Kepler data and show how this allows to derive the interior rotation properties of stars. The recent findings not only have severe implications for stellar evolution theory, but also play a key role in the studies of exoplanets and of our Milky Way galaxy.  Finally, we provide an outlook for future space projects to illustrate the bright future of this relatively new research domain of astrophysics.