Related papers: The future of massive variability searches
The next decade of survey astronomy has the potential to transform our knowledge of variable stars. Stellar variability underpins our knowledge of the cosmological distance ladder, and provides direct tests of stellar formation and…
Many decades ago a search for variable stars was one of the main areas of astrophysical research. Such searches, conducted with CCD detectors rather than with photographic plates, became a by-product of several projects seeking…
A high optical depth to gravitational microlensing towards the galactic bulge is consistent with current models of the galactic bar. The low optical depth towards the LMC can probably be accounted for by the ordinary stars in our galaxy and…
With future wide and deep cosmological sky surveys, a large number of gravitationally lensed, multiply imaged systems will be found. In addition to multiply imaged galaxies and quasars, sources will include transient events like supernovae…
A few percent of all stars are variable, yet over 90% of variables brighter than 12 magnitude have not been discovered yet. There is a need for an all sky search and for the early detection of any unexpected events: optical flashes from…
Massive stars are essential to understand a variety of branches of astronomy including galaxy and star cluster evolution, nucleosynthesis and supernovae, pulsars and black holes. It has become evident that massive star evolution is very…
Massive stars play a fundamental role in shaping the evolution of galaxies through feedback, chemical enrichment, and their end products as neutron stars and black holes. Despite major progress in the last decade, key uncertainties remain…
In this paper we discuss the possibility to measure the Hubble parameter and the slope of galaxy density profiles using future supernova data. With future supernova surveys such as SNAP, large numbers of core collapse supernovae will be…
Ongoing microlensing surveys have already yielded more than five hundred microlensing events, most of which have been identified in real-time. In this review I present the basic theory and observational status of these surveys. I highlight…
Future prospects in observational galaxy evolution are reviewed from a personal perspective. New insights will especially come from high-redshift integral field kinematic data and similar low-redshift observations in very large and…
The extreme luminosity and their fairly unique temporal behaviour have made supernovae a superb tool to measure distances in the universe. As complex astrophysical events they provide interesting insights into explosion physics, explosive…
Microlensing observations have now become a useful tool in searching for non--luminous astrophysical compact objects (brown dwarfs, faint stars, neutron stars, black holes and even planets). Originally conceived for establishing whether the…
Upcoming large-scale spectroscopic surveys such as WEAVE and 4MOST will provide thousands of spectra of massive stars, which need to be analysed in an efficient and homogeneous way. Studies on massive stars are usually based on samples of a…
The observable characteristics and subsequent evolution of young stellar populations is dominated by their massive stars. As our understanding of those massive stars and the factors affecting their evolution improves, so our interpretation…
Binary interactions are commonplace among massive stars, giving rise observed phenomena such as X-ray binaries, stripped stars & supernovae, and gravitational-wave sources. The multiplicity properties of massive stars thus represent a…
Over the last 20 years, supernovae have become a key tool to constrain the expansion history of the Universe through the construction of Hubble diagrams, using luminosity distances to supernovae belonging to the "Ia" subtype. This technique…
We summarize some of the compelling new scientific opportunities for understanding stars and stellar systems that can be enabled by sub-milliarcsec (sub-mas) angular resolution, UV-Optical spectral imaging observations, which can reveal the…
We introduce a new method of searching for and characterizing extra-solar planets. We show that by monitoring the center-of-light motion of microlensing alerts using the next generation of high precision astrometric instruments the…
We explore the motivation behind large stellar surveys in Galactic astronomy, in particular, surveys that measure the photometric, phase space and abundance properties of thousands or millions of stars. These observations are essential to…
Microlensing is potentially sensitive to multiple-planet systems containing analogs of all the solar system planets except Mercury, as well as to free floating planets. I review the landscape of microlensing planet searches, beginning with…