KU Leuven: ERC Synergy Grant for Conny Aerts
The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a prestigious Synergy Grant to KU Leuven astrophysicist Conny Aerts. As coordinating principal investigator, she joins forces with Stéphane Mathis (CEA Paris-Saclay) and Michel Rieutord (University of Toulouse) from France, and Aaron Dotter (Dartmouth College) from the US. The four principal investigators will receive nearly 10 million euros for their 4D-STAR project, which will develop and deliver innovative numerical models of the entire evolution of rotating magnetic stars in three spatial dimensions.
ERC Synergy Grants from the EU research and innovation program Horizon Europe help teams of two to four outstanding researchers to bring together complementary skills, knowledge and resources in one ambitious umbrella project, tackling the world’s most formidable research problems. The projects usually span multiple scientific disciplines – in the case of 4D-STAR this is astronomy, theoretical physics, fluid mechanics, applied mathematics, computer science and software development.
Stars in 4D
Stars are the source of radiation, chemistry and life in the universe. Given their fundamental role in astrophysics, much effort has gone into observing stars, both from the ground and from space. Space asteroseismology, also known as the study of satellite starquakes, provides transformational knowledge of the internal structure, evolution, dynamics and magnetism of stars. But to derive basic quantities of most objects in the Universe, such as age, chemical composition and energy, almost all astrophysicists rely on simplified star models with only one spatial dimension, treating the star as if it were a perfect sphere. This approach, which neglects flattening of stars due to rotation or other multidimensional dynamic processes within their interior, provides an unstable basis for astrophysics and introduces large uncertainties in determining star ages. Accurate ages of stars are a dominant missing ingredient to understand the evolution of stars and planets, the origin of life and the chemistry in our universe.
“With 4D-STAR, the four of us embark on a long journey, with the aim of providing a new solid foundation for astrophysics, by constructing three-dimensional evolution models of rotating magnetic stars, calibrated by asteroseismology,” said coordinating principal investigator Conny Aerts. A leading figure in asteroseismology, she develops groundbreaking star models calibrated by observed starquakes to determine rotation and mixing in stars. “Now is the time to take star models to higher dimensions, using available asteroseismic data from thousands of stars in all dominant life stages,” she continues.