Bio: Dr. Lecoanet earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, a Master’s degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley. He currently holds a joint postdoc position at the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science and as a Lyman Spitzer, Jr. fellow at the Department of Astrophysical Sciences. Dr. Lecoanet works primarily on Astrophysical and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics. He is a core developer for Dedalus.

PROBING THE CORES OF MASSIVE STARS THROUGH THEIR SURFACE: Stars are opaque, which makes it difficult to study their interiors. Recent space-based telescopes have led to the new field of asteroseismology: by measuring global oscillation modes of a star, you can infer its interior properties. Massive stars have convection in their cores which can generate waves, which might be detectable at the surface. In the first part of this talk, I will describe a heuristic way of estimating wave generation by convection, and compare it to high-resolution numerical simulations in Cartesian geometry. To make quantitative predictions to compare with observations, one must run simulations in spherical geometry. In the second part of my talk, I will present a new spectral algorithm for solving nearly arbitrary, tensorial PDEs in spherical coordinates. The challenge is to devise bases which respect regularity conditions at r=0, which depend on the rank of the tensor. The algorithm can be easily applied to the problem of wave generation by convection in stars, as well as a wide range of other problems in stellar astrophysics, core geophysics, and planetary sciences.

This seminar is co-presented by Applied and Interdisciplinary Mathematics program, and the Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery & Engineering. Dr. Lecoanet will be hosted by Professor Charlie Doering, the Nicholas D. Kazarinoff Collegiate Professor of Complex Systems, Mathematics and Physics, and Director of the Center for the Study of Complex Systems.

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The MICDE Winter 2021 Seminar Series is open to all. University of Michigan faculty and students interested in computational and data sciences are encouraged to attend.

Questions? Email [email protected]