Since the discovery of the Sun's five-minute oscillations in 1962 and the resulting recognition of the global coherent nature of these solar oscillations, helioseismology has revolutionized the understanding of the internal structure of the Sun and its interior dynamics.
Since then dedicated instruments on the ground and in space, deliver data that make it possible to carry out detailed studies of the solar interior.
As exemplary results, there are now close boundary conditions to the solar structure and evolution models, and new views on the solar internal rotational profile were presented.
Furthermore, it is now also possible to study local properties of the solar subsurface layers, such as the prevailing conditions under a sunspot or the local variation of plasma flows.
Asteroseismology builds on the success of helioseismology and allows seismic studies of large numbers of other stars, too. Again, the latest observatories based in space (CoRoT and Kepler) have made it possible to determine the inner structure of the stars with high precision.
The goal of this lecture is to provide a general and fundamental overview of the internal structure of the Sun and the stars and the processes prevailing within them.
This includes a detailed introduction to the theory, modern observational methods, and data analysis approaches of helio- and asteroseismology.
Literature:
William Chaplin, "Music of the Sun"
Conny Aerts et al., "Asteroseismology"
Joergen Christensen Dalsgaard, "Stellar Oscillations"
Frank Pijpers, "Methods of helio- and asteroseismology"
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