ProfessorTim Bedding

Project Opportunities

Title: Asteroseismology: probing inside stars using stellar oscillations

Summary of opportunity:

Measuring oscillations in stars like the Sun using asteroseismology is a powerful new method for exploring their internal structures and testing physical theories.

Opportunity synopsis:

Asteroseismology involves using the oscillation frequencies of a star to measure its internal properties.  Measuring stellar oscillations is a beautiful physics experiment: a star is a gaseous sphere and will oscillate in many different modes when suitably excited.  The frequencies of these oscillations depend on the sound speed inside the star, which in turn depends on density, temperature, gas motion and other properties of the stellar interior.  This analysis, called asteroseismology, yields information such as composition, age, mixing and internal rotation that cannot be obtained in any other way and is completely analogous to the seismological study of the interior of the Earth.

Many stars, including the Sun, are observed to oscillate.  Asteroseismology is a new and rapidly developing field and there are several possible PhD projects, depending on the preference of the student. The projects will use observations from NASA’s Kepler and TESS spacecrafts.