Projects

Astronomy is entering the era of big data through the continuous delivery of millions of observations by both ground- and space-based observatories each day. These massive data sets provide us with a unique opportunity to probe the Universe on an unprecedented scale. The brightness observations of stars delivered by space missions contain a wealth of information for stellar variability, exoplanet and stellar astrophysics ...

X-ray emitting binary systems host a compact object - a neutron star or a black hole - orbiting a stellar companion whose gas is accreted by the former. Continuous observations of those systems have revealed a broad range of spectral and photometric behaviors with a special emphasis on their incredible time variability : sudden bursts which make the system tens of thousands times brighter than usual, switches from hard to soft X-ray emission, ...

This PhD dissertation aims to leverage machine learning methods for the all-sky detection and studies of hybrid pulsators using data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), Gaia, and complementary ground-based surveys. The research will first focus on developing and implementing machine learning algorithms to automate the identification of non-radial pulsators across millions of stars, with emphasis on ...

Across our Universe, the dynamics and chemical evolution of galaxies like the Milky Way are primarily controlled by the lives and deaths of stars with masses many times that of the Sun. But the evolution of these massive stars is, in turn, highly regulated by the huge amounts of mass lost from their surfaces, by means of powerful starlight-driven winds. These stellar winds critically determine how such massive stars evolve through the ...

Starting from the all-sky photometric survey performed by the NASA TESS mission, we will select large samples of single and binary gravity-mode pulsators with the aim to perform asteroseismic studies across the Milky Way. In order to achieve this, we will embark upon a systematic study of their fundamental properties, such as effective temperature, gravity, abundances and surface rotation from high-resolution spectroscopy to be ...

The approved European Space Agency (ESA) Cosmic Vision M3 PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) mission will detect terrestrial exoplanets in the habitable zone of bright solar-type stars and characterise their bulk properties. PLATO will answer the profound questions of how common worlds like ours are and if they are suitable for the development of life. PLATO is the only approved mission that will be able to answer these ...

Astronomy is experiencing an unprecedented era of abundance of observational data. The TESS space mission has brought us high-quality brightness measurements of stars over the entire sky, observing large swaths of the sky at the same time over periods of 27 days. The satellite beams down the full camera images, taken at regular time intervals, to astronomers on Earth. This increases enormously the scope of ...

About ten percent of stars with spectral type O, B, or A have a detectable, stable and strong large-scale magnetic field at their surface, which most often resembles a magnetic dipole. These large-scale magnetic fields extend into the radiative layers of the OBA stars and theory and simulations predict that they alter the internal structure and physical properties of these stars.  In particular, it is expected that these large-scale ...

Across our Universe, the dynamics and chemical evolution of galaxies like the Milky Way are primarily controlled by the lives and deaths of stars with masses many times that of the Sun. But the evolution of these massive stars is, in turn, highly regulated by the huge amounts of mass expelled from their surfaces, by means of powerful starlight-driven (`radiation-driven') wind outflows. These stellar winds critically determine how such massive ...