The present workshop takes place at the beginning of what promises to be the golden age of asteroseismology. Ground-based instrumentation is finally reaching a level of stability which allows detailed investigations of solar-like oscillations in at least bright, slowly rotating main-sequence stars. Very extensive data will result from the coming space missions, including, at the beginning of the next decade, data on a broad range of stars from the Eddington mission. The observational situation is therefore extremely promising; to make full use of these possibilities, major efforts are required towards the efficient utilization of the data, through the development of techniques for the analysis and interpretation of the data.
There remain serious problems with the identification of the observed low-degree modes. Stellar modelling needs to be developed to a new level of numerical accuracy and reliability, even in the case of `classical' evolution calculations, and major uncertainties remain in the study of effects of stellar rotation on stellar structure and oscillations. The techniques for the analysis of the oscillation frequencies, which have been developed to a high level in the solar case, must be adapted to the more limited data available for stars, taking into account also the weaker constraints on the general stellar properties such as mass and radius.
The asteroseismic investigations must take place in close connection with other types of observations, to place as tight constraints as possible on the stellar properties and hence allow the use of the oscillation frequencies for probing aspects of stellar internal structure. Here also major advances are expected. Efficient spectrographs on large telescopes will provide improved determinations of stellar atmospheric properties and surface composition, particularly when combined with hydrodynamical modelling of stellar atmospheres. Also, the GAIA mission will much improved parallaxes, although only well into the coming decade. The investigations also require close connection with the development of our understanding of the physical properties of stellar matter, with the hope that the seismic data will eventually provide constraints on these properties under conditions quite different from those encountered in the Sun.
Given all these observational and theoretical efforts, which promise to be discussed in detail during this workshop, we may certainly expect that stellar astrophysics will undergo a revolution in terms of observational depth and physical realism, to the great benefit to all of astrophysics.

 
Print this abstract