Abstract: Betelgeuse is closer than we thought, but we're safe from its end-of-life explosion for at least the next ten thousand years. In the meantime, we see the future of the Sun unfold in real time through the dying breaths of T Ursae Minoris. Nearby, Alpha Centauri A and B offer rare insight into the inner workings of stellar convection---an opportunity once afforded only by the Sun. And across the sky, young stars reveal their ages via their oscillation spectra. These are just a few of the things we have learned in the last 2 years thanks to Gaia, TESS, and seismic stellar evolution: a modeling technique that exploits multi-timescale simulations of the evolution and structure of stars. In this talk, I will discuss the novel ways in which I combine precision stellar evolution calculations with seismic perturbations and a rigorous treatment of observational and theoretical uncertainties to build predictive timelines of variable stars, revise best estimates for the fundamental parameters of our most important calibrators, and conquer highly degenerate modeling problems to derive a more precise radius for Betelgeuse than can be obtained from interferometry.
Zoom Link:
Meeting ID: 885 1389 6776
Passcode: 713070
Host: Richard Townsend, Astronomy Department Chair