Cluster–Asteroseismology Synergies in the Era of Space Missions
Context
Understanding how stars form, evolve, and die is one of the central goals of modern astrophysics. However, despite major advances in stellar modelling, many key internal processes — such as rotation, magnetic fields, and chemical mixing — remain poorly observed or calibrated, leading to significant uncertainties in age determinations, surface abundances, and evolutionary tracks. These uncertainties can also topple the foundations of our understanding of the Universe, from the evolution of exoplanetary systems to the formation of galaxies.
Asteroseismology, the study of stellar internal oscillations, offers a unique window into the deep interiors of stars. Space missions such as CoRoT, Kepler, and TESS have revolutionised our understanding of stellar physics by detecting pressure and gravity modes across nearly all stellar types. Interpreting these oscillations allows us to probe stellar internal processes — from the core to the surface — and to infer quantities such as differential rotation, chemical mixing, and even deeply buried magnetic fields that are otherwise inaccessible. These internal processes, hardly constrained by traditional photometric or spectroscopic observations, profoundly influence stellar evolution and are a major source of uncertainty in stellar models. Asteroseismology has therefore transformed the study of stellar evolution from a model-driven to a data-driven research, providing direct and powerful constraints on the physics of stellar interiors.
Star clusters provide ideal laboratories for testing stellar evolution theory. Because the member stars of a cluster share a common age, distance, and chemical composition — forming simple stellar populations (SSPs) — their positions on the colour–magnitude diagram offer powerful constraints on stellar models. Thanks to the high-precision astrometric and photometric data from Gaia, we can now identify cluster members and determine their spatial distributions and luminosities with unprecedented accuracy. Many phenomena observed in clusters — such as extended main-sequence turn-offs (eMSTOs) and blue stragglers — challenge our current view of stellar evolution and demand internal diagnostics. These internal insights may help explain the limitations of the SSP hypothesis, yet related studies remain scarce.
Despite the transformative success of both cluster studies and asteroseismology, the two fields have largely evolved in parallel. Their synergy represents a natural next step in stellar astrophysics. Clusters provide precisely constrained stellar masses, luminosities, and ages that can drastically reduce degeneracies in seismic modelling, while asteroseismology reveals the internal physics that governs the evolutionary paths of cluster members. This combined approach enables direct calibration of stellar evolution models, improves age determinations, and helps explain long-standing cluster anomalies such as eMSTOs and blue stragglers.
With the imminent launch of next-generation space missions such as PLATO, Nancy Grace Roman, and ET 2.0, which will deliver long-term and wide-field photometry of numerous open clusters, now is the ideal time to unify the cluster and asteroseismic communities. We therefore organise the ISSI–BJ Workshop on Synergistic Research of Stellar Clusters and Asteroseismology in the Era of Space-Based Telescopes to bring together experts from both fields to discuss and explore future collaborative opportunities.
Objectives
The main aim of this workshop is to foster synergistic research between asteroseismology and stellar cluster studies, making full use of existing space-based data while also shaping strategies for future missions and datasets. Through interdisciplinary discussions, we aim to bridge the gap between the two communities and define the most promising directions for joint research in the coming decade.
The workshop will be organised around five thematic sessions, each focusing on a key scientific topic at the intersection of clusters and asteroseismology.
1) Space missions: overview and outlook
2) Solar-like oscillators in clusters
3) Classical pulsators in clusters
4) Pulsating mergers and binary evolution
5) Clusters with diverse stellar internal physics
Product:
Following the workshop, Springer will publish its output as a volume in the Space Science Series of ISSI. The chapters of the book are:
(1) Fifteen Years of Asteroseismology Observations: A Review
(2) Asteroseismology-inspired 1-D and 2-D stellar models
(3) Theories and Observations of Stellar Rotation and Magnetic Fields
(4) Binary interactions and tides
(5) Burgeoning research and future challenges in cluster-asteroseismology synergy
Date: 13-17 April 2026
| Conny Aerts | Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium |
| Tim Bedding | University of Sydney, Australia |
| Jianning Fu | Beijing Normal University, China |
| Xiaoting Fu |
Purple Mountain Observatory, China |
| Richard de Grijs | Macquarie University, Australia; International Space Science Institute-Beijing, China |
| Gang Li (Chair) | Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium; University of Southern Queensland, Australia |
| Joey Mombarg | University of Paris-Saclay, France |
| Simon Murphy |
University of Southern Queensland, Australia |
| Meng Sun | National Astronomical Observatories of China, China |
Workshop Agenda
Workshop Handbook
Participants List
Presentations
Group Photo
