Echography of young stars reveals their evolution
- Author(s)
- Konstanze Zwintz, Luca Fossati, Tanya A. Ryabchikova, Nathalie Themeßl, Denise Lorenz, Rainer Kuschnig, Werner Wolfgang Weiss
- Abstract
We demonstrate that a seismic analysis of stars in their earliest evolutionary phases is a powerful method with which to identify young stars and distinguish their evolutionary states. The early star that is born from the gravitational collapse of a molecular cloud reaches at some point sufficient temperature, mass, and luminosity to be detected. Accretion stops, and the pre-main sequence star that emerges is nearly fully convective and chemically homogeneous. It will continue to contract gravitationally until the density and temperature in the core are high enough to start nuclear burning of hydrogen. We showthat there is a relationship for a sample of young stars between detected pulsation properties and their evolutionary status, illustrating the potential of asteroseismology for the early evolutionary phases.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Astrophysics
- External organisation(s)
- Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Open University, Russian Academy of Sciences
- Journal
- Science
- Volume
- 345
- Pages
- 550-553
- No. of pages
- 4
- ISSN
- 0036-8075
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1253645
- Publication date
- 08-2014
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103003 Astronomy, 103004 Astrophysics
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/cca8fd72-1663-4535-98f8-7106348c3bda