De Cat, Peter

Seminar presented at Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China on 2024-09-25

Abstract: Massive stars are the most important building blocks of our universe. When they explode as supernovae, they enrich their environments with the elements from which the next generation of stars are formed. Amongst the OB stars, different types of stellar pulsations are observed that can be used to study the interiors of massive stars with asteroseismic tools. There are several excitation mechanisms at play and different factors that influence their pulsations. Thanks to the arrival of space missions providing ultra-precise light curves with a sufficiently long time base, we now have observations revealing signatures that can be used to study their effects. In this talk, I will start by giving the view that we had on the part of the HR diagram hosting the OB stars at the start of my PhD (some 30 years ago) and show how it evolved into our current understanding thanks to asteroseismic results obtained the space era.