Asteroseismology Across the Hertzsprung–Russell Diagram

Abstract

Asteroseismology has grown from its beginnings three decades ago to a mature field teeming with discoveries and applications. This phenomenal growth has been enabled by space photometry with precision 10–100 times better than ground-based observations, with nearly continuous light curves for durations of weeks to years, and by large-scale ground-based surveys spanning years designed to detect all time-variable phenomena. The new high-precision data are full of surprises, deepening our understanding of the physics of stars. ▪ This review explores asteroseismic developments from the past decade primarily as a result of light curves from the Kepler and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite space missions for massive upper main sequence OBAF stars, pre-main-sequence stars, peculiar stars, classical pulsators, white dwarfs and subdwarfs, and tidally interacting close binaries. ▪ The space missions have increased the numbers of pulsators in many classes by an order of magnitude. ▪ Asteroseismology measures fundamental stellar parameters and stellar interior physics—mass, radius, age, metallicity, luminosity, distance, magnetic fields, interior rotation, angular momentum transfer, convective overshoot, core-burning stage—supporting disparate fields such as galactic archeology, exoplanet host stars, supernovae progenitors, gamma-ray and gravitational wave precursors, close binary star origins and evolution, and standard candles. ▪ Stars are the luminous tracers of the Universe. Asteroseismology significantly improves models of stellar structure and evolution on which all inference from stars depends. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Astronomy Volume 60 is August 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.