In the research group "Stellar Evolution and Asteroseismology" we focus on a better understanding of stellar evolution using asteroseismic methods where we put a particular focus on the early stages of the lives of stars.

Asteroseismology – the study of stellar oscillations – allows to probe the interior structures of pulsating stars and has been a powerful tool for stars in many evolutionary stages.
The "Stellar Evolution and Asteroseismology" research group's work focuses on stars that have not started full equilibrium hydrogen burning in their cores yet, so-called pre-main sequence stars, i.e. the relatively new research area of Pre-Main Sequence Asteroseismology. Applying asteroseismic methods to stars in their earliest evolutionary phases will allow to investigate several open questions of stellar evolution, for example the exact determination of stellar ages, the speed of stellar evolution, the evolution of angular momentum between stellar birth and the arrival on the main sequence or the chemical evolution in early stars.

For our research, we use data obtained from space telescopes – such as the NASA missions Kepler K2 and TESS, the MOST and CoRoT satellites and the Austrian-Canadian-Polish Nano-Satellite Mission BRITE-Constellation – in combination with complementary data from large ground-based facilities, e.g. the ESO telescopes in Chile, the Canada-French-Hawaiian telescope in Hawaii or the SALT telescope in South Africa.

 

NEW: Current Master Thesis Topics (September 2020)

Several topics for master and bachelor theses are available. Two projects are introduced below.

Pulsating A and F stars observed with the BRITE-Constellation and TESS space telescopes (Download description as pdf)

Tidally perturbed modes in eclipsing binaries (Download description as pdf) 

Head of the Research Group
Univ. Prof. Konstanze Zwintz
Tel. +43 512 507-52034
konstanze.zwintz@uibk.ac.at
personal homepage

Administrative Assistant