Speaker
Description
Massive stars are progenitors of neutron stars and black holes, and through their winds and supernova explosions dictate the chemical and energetic feedback of galaxies. During the hydrogen-core burning phase the convective cores of massive stars act as engines that drive stellar evolution, but inferences of core masses are subject to unconstrained boundary mixing processes. Moreover, uncalibrated chemical and angular momentum transport mechanisms can lead to unwieldy mixing and rotation profiles. Ascertaining the efficiency of these transport mechanisms is challenging because of a lack of observational constraints. However, thanks to the ongoing TESS mission and our development of modern asteroseismic modelling techniques for massive stars, we deduce a precise convective core mass and robustly demonstrate non-rigid radial rotation in a supernova progenitor. In this talk, I present the results of combining TESS photometry, high-resolution spectroscopy, and Gaia astrometry for a main-sequence massive star pulsator. We measure its mass, core mass, and age to better than 15% precision which is unprecedented. Using asteroseismic modelling of rotational multiplets, we also infer its core to be rotating approximately 1.5 times faster than its envelope. This pulsating massive star represents a truly unique anchor point for calibrating the interior rotation, mixing and angular momentum transport processes within massive stars.
