PRE2023-MassiveStarWinds (PID2022-137779OB-C41)

The winds of massive stars in multiple evolutionary stages At several stages of their evolution, massive stars experience outflows of mass also known as winds. The wind is key in the life of a star since it removes sufficient mass to alter the subsequent evolution. This translates into impacting the host galaxy to a different degree (e.g. production of ionizing photons and kinetic energy), the way the star will die as supernova, and whether there will be a neutron star or a black hole at the end of its evolution. The wind strength of massive stars depends critically on their chemical composition. The Milky Way and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) enable studies of massive stars with different chemical composition. The PhD student will work, on one hand, on team's multi-epoch observations of massive stars in the Galactic Center of the Milky Way. Besides yielding the first detection of binaries in some clusters, these data will characterize the wind behavior in environments of high metal content. On the other hand, the study of own JWST observations of SMC massive stars will characterize winds in the metal-poor opposite extreme. To reach these goals, the student will be trained in data reduction and spectroscopic analysis with model atmospheres. Additional observations with the JWST, GTC and VLT will be requested to obtain complementary information on the winds. Finally, the student will explore how to supersede the observational limitations of the project using the ELT.