Conny Aerts on asteroseismology — gravito-inertial, tidally tilted, & more

Originally broadcast on February 10, 2024.

In this webinar, 2024 Crafoord laureate Prof. Conny Aerts began with the basic principles of asteroseismology, explaining its capacity to probe stellar interiors, as well as how its applications to sun-like stars and red giants support exoplanetary and galactic science.

The second part of her talk focused on recent applications to stars rotating much faster than the Sun, including a discussion of how the new technique of gravito-inertial asteroseismology promises to estimate the internal rotation and chemical mixing deep inside stars, with major implications for stellar evolution.

Finally, Prof. Aerts offered a peek at the frontier field of tidal asteroseismology, as well as the exciting future opportunities offered to this booming research field by the upcoming ESA PLATO space mission.

After her presentation, Conny stayed online for an extended Q&A session, answering many thought-provoking questions from the audience.

Timestamps:
00:00 Opening announcements
02:08 Introducing Conny Aerts
04:18 Presentation - Asteroseismology
55:20 Q&A with Conny
01:31:20 Closing announcements

Conny Aerts earned her PhD in astrophysics in 1993 from KU Leuven, where today she holds the title of Full Professor. She also leads the Chair in Asteroseismology at the Radboud University Nijmegen, and is External Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society.

Conny's research covers stellar astrophysics, including stellar structure, stellar evolution, and variable stars. She is a pioneer of the field of asteroseismology, and in the days before precision space photometry was available, she developed rigorous mathematical methods to detect and identify non-radial stellar oscillations in high-resolution time-series spectroscopy. As Chair in Asteroseismology at the Radboud University Nijmegen, Conny has expanded into the topic of subdwarf stars, especially their binarity and pulsations, with her current focus on the development and exploitation of BlackGEM in tandem with gravitational wave studies. She is also heavily involved in the ESA space mission PLATO (2026+), as Belgian PI.

10 days before this webinar, Conny was awarded the 2024 Crafoord Prize in Astronomy for her foundational contributions to the field of asteroseismology. Her pioneering work in asteroseismology also earned her the 2022 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics. Two of her many other accolades are the 2012 Francqui Prize and the 2020 5-year FWO Excellence Award; Conny was the first woman to receive either of these prestigious awards in Science & Technology since their creation in 1933 and 1960, respectively.

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