Abstract

The rotational dynamics of stars strongly impacts their evolution and those of their planetary and galactic environment. Space helio- and asteroseismology recently allowed an observational revolution in this domain. They revealed, e.g., that the radiative core of the Sun is close to a uniform rotation while those of subgiant and red giant stars slow down drastically during their evolution. At the same time, some intermediate-mass and massive stars’ radiative envelopes host only weak differential rotation.

These important results “have made angular momentum transport in stars throughout their life time an observational science” (Kurtz 2014) and demonstrate that powerful dynamical mechanisms (internal gravity waves, magnetic fields, instabilities and turbulence) are in action to extract angular momentum all along the evolution of stars. 
In this seminar, I will give a complete review of our current understanding of the theory of angular momentum transport in stars and of challenges that must be addressed.