The analysis and interpretation of stellar oscillations ---asteroseismology --- permits direct observational examination of stellar interiors. In particular, low-degree p-modes, excited through the same stochastic convective mechanism as in our Sun, permit us to draw inferences about the global properties, interior structures, rotational dynamics, and evolutionary fates of field stars. Space-based photometry missions allow observational characterisation of p-modes to be performed at scale, thus permitting asteroseismology to be prosecuted in an ensemble fashion, rather than target-by-target. I provide a survey of observational and methodological advances made over the last decade, and of some key findings resulting from their application to data from the NASA Kepler and TESS missions. In particular, deficiencies in our present understanding of stellar structure and evolution can be seen to arise. I examine the present and prospective future role of solar-like oscillators in approaching these open questions.
BIO
Joel Ong (王加冕) is a NASA Hubble Fellow at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. His research concerns the development of techniques for using solar-like p-modes and p-dominated gravitoacoustic mixed modes to constrain stellar properties and dynamics. In addition to this, he is a contributor to several community-driven open-source computational astrophysics projects, such as MESA (stellar evolution) and GYRE (stellar oscillations). Prior to this, Joel received his PhD from Yale University in 2022, where he was a member of the instrument software team for the EXtreme PREcision Spectrograph.
Host: Shude Mao
