Spectroscopy of massive stars in the MCs

Massive stars are those stars that produce supernovae at the end of their lives, but their evolution is extremely uncertain - largely as a result of small number statistics. This situation is now improving: over the last decade, hundreds of spectra of massive stars have been gathered, both in our Milky Way galaxy, as well as in the low metallicity environments of the Magellanic Clouds. We expect the evolution of massive stars in the Clouds to be totally different from that in the Milky Way, which will give us a glimpse of how massive stars would have evolved in the Early Universe.

The goal of the PhD project is to analyze and interpret spectra of massive stars and their evolved supergiant counterparts in the Small Magellanic Cloud, applying the non-LTE model atmosphere code CMFGEN to optical and ultraviolet spectra.