Unlocking the potential of asteroseismology to study massive stars in young clusters

Le résumé fourni par la source

Our understanding of massive stars has improved greatly in recent years thanks to numerous observational campaigns and different theoretical and evolutionary models, highlighting how both binarity and pulsations are almost ubiquitous. Still, a large number of questions remain unanswered: how can we identify binary interaction products? How do pulsations affect the core envelope mixing and the transport of angular momentum inside the star? Why do some massive stars rotate so fast, and what causes the possible formation of their equatorial disk?Asteroseismology offers unique insights into the internal structure of stars, which other techniques (such as spectroscopy) alone cannot provide. Moreover, clusters give us another important advantage by having a chemically homogeneous and coeval sample, which is extremely important when trying to characterise an ensemble of massive stars.In this talk, I will show how combining these two techniques can help answer some of the open questions regarding massive star evolution. I will present the characterisation of 80 B-type stars in four Galactic young open clusters of different ages (15-30 Myr), and I will discuss the power of forward asteroseismic modelling for massive stars in clusters. In particular, I will show what we can learn from the modelling of a single star with only three consecutive TESS sectors and its spectroscopic characterisation. I will discuss how comparable methods to determine the ages of stars, asteroseismic modelling and isochrone fitting, are consistent with each other.Performing asteroseismic studies of stars in clusters is crucial in being able to identify possible binary interaction products and being able to constrain their internal structure, but it is particularly difficult because of the dense environments they inhabit. The proposed ESA mission HAYDN will be purpose-built to study dense environments by having a much smaller pixel size compared to missions like TESS and Kepler, and will be key to unlocking asteroseismology of massive stars in young clusters.

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