Dr. Falk Herwig
Post Doctoral Fellow at the University of Victoria
June 11, 2003
7:30pm
University of Victoria, Elliott Building, Room 061
Variable star amateur astronomers have sparked new research activities when they
contributed crucial data to what is now the only fast born-again event witnessed
in situ. Japanese amateur Sakurai reported the emerging star now known as V4334
Sgr or Sakurai's object. While a lot of research has been related to optical and
infrared observational properties, my presentation covers the
implications of Sakurai's object for the internal process which lead to the
sudden rebirth of this previously extremely faint star. In particular, I show new knowledge about basic, but not well known properties of stellar mixing
and nucleo-synthesis.
Falk's
Born-Again Giants
presentation
Falk's
CV and
range of
research activities.
Brief Biography:
Falk studies stars -- how they evolve and how their chemistry
and
structure evolves. Falk received his Ph.D. in 1998 at the
Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam and University Kiel, Germany. His thesis
was: Evolution of late stages of intermediate mass stars: Mixing processes and
their consequence for stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis. His M.Sc. (1994)
thesis was: White dwarfs in open clusters and the initial-final mass relation
of stars. Falk is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of
Victoria, working under Prof. D. A. VandenBerg.
