Rotation of solar-like stars probed using asteroseismology
Othman M. Benomar (Solar Science Observatory, NAOJ)
abstract:
Recent space instruments such as Kepler have been providing high quality photometric lightcurves for distant stars, enabling detailed asteroseismic studies for ten of thousands of stars.
For example, our understanding of the rotation of solar-like stars has been significantly improved. Solar-like stars are intermediate-mass stars with an outer convective envelope that excite acoustic waves. Asteroseismology study those waves in order to probe the star’s interior and reveal its structure and evolution.
Due to asteroseismology, there is now clear evidences for an angular momentum transport acting within solar-like stars and enforcing a weak radial differential rotation (Deheuvels+2014, Deheuvels+2015, Benomar+2015, Nielsen+2017). Kepler data also enabled us to evaluate the latitudinal differential rotation for main-sequence solar-like stars. This has shown that a vast majority of them are likely to have a slow pole and a faster equator, as it is observed for the Sun (Benomar+2018, Bazot+2019). Although ~30% of the Sun-like stars may show a much stronger latitudinal differential rotation than the Sun, these results suggest that the mechanism in play in the Sun may not be different than most solar-like stars in terms of magnetism, activity and dynamo.
host contact: Akihiro Suzuki