From Variable Star Surveys to the Cosmic Distance Scale

Wednesday 4 Nov 2026, 14:00 → 15:00 Asia/Shanghai

Tsung-Dao Lee Institute/S4F-SW - Open Area (Tsung-Dao Lee Institute)

Xiaodian Chen（陈孝钿）

Title: From Variable Star Surveys to the Cosmic Distance Scale
Time: 14:00-15:00 (UTC+8), 4 November 2026, Wednesday
Host: Xianzhong Zheng
Join Tencent Meeting：https://meeting.tencent.com/dm/Ub9QxumVnfKu
Meeting ID: 594776263 (no password)

Abstract:
Approximately two in every thousand stars in the night sky exhibit significant brightness variations and are known as variable stars. The study of variable stars is a classical field of astrophysics that witnessed numerous breakthroughs during the last century. Today, with the advent of wide-field time-domain surveys, variable-star research is entering a new era, with the number of known variable stars reaching the tens of millions. In this talk, I will introduce how large-scale astronomical data can be used to identify periodic variable stars and explore how these stars can be systematically combined into a powerful cosmic yardstick for measuring distances across the Universe.

Biography:
Xiaodian Chen is a researcher at the National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC). He received his B.S. in Astronomy from Beijing Normal University in 2011 and his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Peking University in 2016. His research interests include variable-star astrophysics, cosmic distance measurements, and artificial intelligence in astronomy.