Laura Millson
Position: 4th year PhD student
Supervisor: Dr Anne-Marie Broomhall
Funding: Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Research
My research is within solar and stellar physics, across the areas of helioseismology and asteroseismology. These topics are concerned with the nature of acoustic waves within the Sun, and other stars, respectively. Acoustic modes are trapped within stellar interiors, and so not only are they sensitive to changes within the star (such as from magnetic activity) but they can also probe deep into the interior. Much of what we know today about the interior of our Sun has come from the study of helioseismology.
Most of my PhD research has been focused on the pseudo-modes. The pseudo-modes are travelling waves, as they have frequencies which are high enough for them to move beyond the interior and leave the star (and so are not trapped within the star the same way that lower frequency acoustic modes are). We have utilised shifts in the frequencies of the pseudo-modes to investigate whether any latitudinal sensitivity of the solar pseudo-modes exists throughout the 11-year sunspot cycle. We have also extended the search for pseudo-modes to other stars, and have detected them and potential stellar magnetic activity cycles in a large sample of Kepler stars.
Publications
Millson, L. J., Broomhall, A-M., Mehta, T. (2024) Latitudinal Dependence of Variations in the Frequencies of Solar Oscillations Above the Acoustic Cut-Off Solar Physics, vol 299(134).
Millson, L. J., Broomhall, A-M., Santos, A. R. G., Kiefer, R. (2025) Investigation of oscillations above the acoustic cut-off frequency for a sample of Kepler stars. I. Methodology for detecting stellar pseudo-modes MNRAS, vol 536(3).
Millson, L. J., Broomhall, A-M., Santos, A. R. G., Kiefer, R., Jones, M. (accepted Dec 2024) Investigation of oscillations above the acoustic cut-off frequency for a sample of Kepler stars. II. Identifying temporal frequency shifts MNRAS.
Education
Space Science and Engineering (MSc), University College London (UCL), 2019-2020
Geoscience (MSc), University College London (UCL), 2018-2019
Physical Geography (BSc Hons), University of York (year abroad University of Hong Kong), 2015-2018