63^rd ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE SA INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

Spectroscopic follow up of TESS observations to study new Pulsating Pre-Main Sequence stars

26 Jun 2018, 15:00

2h

Poster Presentation Track D1 - Astrophysics Poster Session 1

Speaker

Mr Papi Lekwene (North West University)

Description

Scientific rationale The NASA KEPLER Mission sent a 1.0 m telescope into space to search for planets around other stars. Tremendous amount of photometric data was produced and was used to study pulsating stars of the different types. Many of the observed pulsators had multiple frequencies which were used to determined detailed physics of these stars. For example, solar like oscillations were detected in highly evolved stars and used to determine their masses, radii and even mass loss rates. Follow-up spectroscopic observations were used to provide further constraints in the properties of these Kepler stars. The only stars that were not found in the KEPLER data were the pulsating Pre-main sequence stars (also called pulsating Herbig AeBe stars). This is largely because the region of the sky that KEPLER telescope was pointing at is away from star forming regions where Herbig stars are usually found. Herbig AeBe are very young stars (several million years old, compared to our Sun which is 5 billion years old for example). These stars derive most of their energy from gravitational contraction. Furthermore, the region of interest for the KEPLER mission was in the northern sky, and thus was not suitable for follow-up observations with telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere. In April 2018, NASA is launching a new mission called TESS to search for earth-like planets around other stars. TESS will take photometric observations of stars and their exo-planets. It will similarly produce tremendous amount of data of high precision. The main advantage of TESS is that it observe stars in both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, and will thus be within reach of our telescopes in Sutherland. We will thus be able to perform follow-up spectroscopic observations of the TESS targets. Our Phd proposal aims to observe Herbig pulsating Ae stars that have been observed by TESS with spectrograph attached to the 1.9 metre telescope at Sutherland. The aim being to make detailed studies of the Herbig Ae stars in order to learn more about their internal physics from their pulsations and spectroscopy. The light curves extracted from the TESS simulated data allows us to search and study to detail for Young Pre-main sequence stars.

Supervisor details<br><b>If not a student, type N/A.</b><br>Student abstract submision<br>requires supervisor permission:<br>please give their name,<br> institution and email address.

Prof R.T Medupe