Research Area: STELLAR STRUCTURE AND EVOLUTION

Topics covered in this research area

  • Stellar evolution, especially the late stages, for example:
    • Mass loss
    • Planetary nebulae
    • Supernovae
  • Stellar surface abundances
  • Stellar surface structures
  • Stellar pulsations
  • Stellar magnetic fields and magnetic activity
  • Low mass stars
  • Black holes and neutron stars

These research topics are covered using observations from X-rays to Infrared, and with many different techniques, e.g., high resolution optical/IR spectroscopy, optical interferometry and polarimetry.

People working on this research area also meet regularly in so-called "stellar coffee".

Thesis topics offered on Stellar Structure and Evolution

Thesis topic Thesis supervisor(s)
Studying variable stars in globular and open clusters Daniel Bramich
Evolution of Solar-type Stars using ALMA Liz Humphreys
Magnetic fields and interaction in binary systems
 Gaitee Hussain
Home page
Pinning down the nature of Type Ia SN progenitors Ferdinando Patat
The role of magnetic fields in the intermediate-mass star formation process Markus Schöller
Magnetic fields in massive stars Markus Schöller
Dust in the Crab Nebula Supernova Remnant Jeremy Walsh
Home page

Scientific Staff in Garching working on Stellar Structure and Evolution

Faculty

Name Interests

Dietrich Baade		 Scientific interests:
  • Pulsations and mass loss of early type stars
  • Light atomic elements in the interstellar medium
  • Late stages of stellar evolution

Daniel Bramich		 Scientific interests:
  • Extra-solar planet detection and characterisation, principally via the transit and microlensing methods
  • Variable stars
  • High precision photometric methods, principally difference imaging
  • Algorithms in Astronomy

Maria Diaz Trigo		 Scientific interests:
  • X-ray binaries
  • Black holes and neutron stars
  • High-energy astrophysics
  • Accretion disc atmospheres, winds and jets
  • Ultra-luminous X-ray sources and AGN

Roberto Gilmozzi		 Scientific interests:
  • Novae, Supernovae
  • UV astronomy
  • Future Telescopes

Gaitee Hussain		 Scientific interests:
  • Magnetic activity in cool stars and stellar clusters
  • Optical, NIR and X-ray spectroscopy of stars and circumstellar environments
  • T Tauri and pre-main sequence stars
  • Stellar surface imaging
Personal home page
Florian Kerber Scientific interests:
  • Planetary nebulae
  • Late stages of stellar evolution
  • Stellar mass loss and interaction with the interstellar medium

Sabine Moehler		 Scientific interests:
  • Galactic globular clusters
  • Horizontal branch stars
  • Late stages of stellar evolution
Personal home page

Luca Pasquini		 Scientific interests:
  • Precision Spectroscopy, direct measurement of the cosmic acceleration
  • Light Element Abundances (Li and Be): Primordial Nucleosynthesis,
    Galactic Enrichment, Stellar Mixing
  • Globular Clusters: light elements anti-correlations
  • Chemical Abundance of stars in the local group, in clusters and in the field
  • Exo-Planets, planets around evolved stars

Ferdinando Patat		 Scientific interests:
  • Supernovae
  • Statistical Data Analysis
  • Monte Carlo Simulations
Personal home page

Francesca Primas		 Scientific interests:
  • Galactic chemical evolution
  • UV and optical astronomy
  • High-resolution spectroscopy

Markus Scholler		 Scientific interests:
  • Optical Long Baseline Interferometry
  • Stellar magnetic fields
  • Star formation and stellar evolution

Elena Valenti		 Scientific interests:
  • Resolved stellar populations
  • Star Clusters
  • Galactic Bulge
  • Chemical Abundances
  • Adaptive optics - NIR Imaging and Spectroscopy

Jeremy Walsh		 Scientific interests:
  • Planetary nebulae
  • HII regions
  • Polarimetry
Personal home page

Markus Wittkowski		 Scientific interests:
  • Optical interferometry
  • Stellar surfaces
  • AGN
Personal home page

Fellows

Name Interests

Stephan Geier		 Scientific interests:
  • Hot subdwarf stars
  • Close binaries
  • Substellar companions to hot stars
  • SN Ia progenitors

Jason Grunhut		 Scientific interests:
  • Incidence and structure of magnetic fields of massive stars
  • Magnetism and pulsations of early type stars
  • Stellar surface and circumstellar imaging
  • High-resolution, optical spectropolarimetry of stars and their circumstellar environment

Farid Rahoui		 Scientific interests:
  • Multi-wavelengths study of high energy sources
  • Black holes and Neutron stars
  • X-ray binaries (low- and high mass) evolution and direct environment
  • Accretion discs and jet physics in microquasars and quasars

Students

Name Interests

Leticia Ferreira		 Scientific interests:
  • Open Clusters
  • Stellar Characterization of Host planet stars
  • Stellar abundances of late-type stars

Roberto Figuera		 Scientific interests:
  • Globular and open clusters
  • Variable stars
  • Gravitational lensing events
  • Lightcurves of accreting black holes

Elisabeth Gall		 Scientific interests:
  • Supernovae: IIP, Ia
  • Cosmology
  • NIR Spectroscopy

Laura Inno		 Scientific interests:
  • Cepheids and Variable Stars
  • Galaxy Structure and Kinematics
  • Cosmic Distance Scale

Florian Niederhofer		 Scientific interests:
  • High-Mass Star Formation
  • Massive Stars
  • Stellar Populations
  • ISM of Galaxies

Yue Wang		 Scientific interests:
  • Globular cluster evolution
  • Galactic chemical evolution