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Joint Astrophysics ColloquiumJoint Astrophysics SeminarToward a deeper understanding of stellar interiorsTravis S. MetcalfeHarvard-Smithsonian Center for AstrophysicsAsteroseismology holds great promise for revealing the interior structure of pulsating stars. Recent work on white dwarf stars suggests that a unique physical interpretation of the pulsation frequencies is complicated by the difficulty of disentangling effects in the deep core from those in the envelope. We have learned that there is an inherent symmetry in the way high-overtone stellar pulsations sample the core and the envelope, resulting in a potential ambiguity in the location of internal structures that produce mode trapping. Although I will only discuss the case of white dwarf stars that pulsate in g-modes, such a symmetry should be a generic feature of all high-overtone g-mode or p-mode pulsators. We will ultimately be able to break the symmetry by exploiting the fact that the processes responsible for the various internal structures are physically distinct - leading naturally to unique mode trapping signatures.
Thursday, May 8th 2003, 12:30
D-423, Département de Physique, Université de Montréal |