Astronomy Colloquium

Stars are born rotating. Understanding how the angular velocity profile changes during their evolution is key to unravel the details of explosive
stellar deaths (Supernovae and Gamma Ray Bursts) and the properties of stellar remnants (White Dwarfs, Neutron Stars and Black Holes).
I will quickly introduce the different classes of angular momentum transport mechanisms discussed in the literature and included in stellar evolution
calculations.  I will then describe the new exciting results obtained by the KEPLER satellite, which through asteroseismology provided a measure of the degree of radial differential rotation in many evolved low-mass stars. These observations can be used to test current theories for angular momentum
transport. I will show results of such comparisons performed with the state-of-the-art open source stellar evolution code MESA.