Ilka Petermann

Argelander Institute for Astronomy, Auf dem Hügel 71, 53121 Bonn

Mail : ilka (at) astro.uni-bonn.de

Room : 1.020b

Phone: +49 228 73-3651

Skype: ilka.petermann

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I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Stellar Astrophysics group at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy. My research interests include stellar evolution (stellar evolution code MESA), (r-process) nucleosynthesis and cosmochronometry.

My Phd thesis was concerned with r-process network calculations, find a summary here or have a look at this poster for a very short overview.

Bachelor thesis project:

Convective/Radiative Stellar Cores

Stars on the main sequence produce their energy by converting hydrogen into helium in their cores. Depending on the star's mass and metallicity, fusion proceeds either via the pp chain or the CNO cycle. The latter one is very temperature sensitive, therefore the core is very hot but its temperature falls off rapidly: the core region forms a convection zone that mixes the hydrogen fuel with its ashes, helium. As the occurence of the CNO cycle also depends on the presence of its catalysts carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, their abundances influence the strength of the CNO process and thus the occurrence of convection. In stars like our Sun the energy production proceeds mainly via the pp-chain, the CNO cycle accounts only for roughly 1%. This projects aims at understanding the sensitivity of the possible formation of a convective core, focusing on various metallicities in stars within the range of one solar mass. As part of this work, a set of stellar evolution models for different masses and metallicities will be calculated and evaluated.