Astro

University of Alicante

Research Group

What we do

The Stellar Astrophysics Group at the University of Alicante carries out intensive research across several fields of astrophysics, along with a substantial effort to bring astronomy to the wider public, in collaboration with groups at other universities such as the University of Valencia and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias.

Recorded on 25 May 2021

Group members

  • Dr. Amparo Marco Tobarra

    Full Professor (Astronomy and Astrophysics)

  • Dr. Ignacio Negueruela Díez

    Full Professor (Astronomy and Astrophysics)

  • Dr. Klaus Rübke Zúñiga

    Research astrophysicist

  • Elías Ferrández Ruiz

    Research astrophysicist

Former members

  • Francesc Vilardell Sallés
  • Institut de Ciències de l’Espai
  • Carlos González Fernández
  • Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge
  • Maria Monguió i Montells
  • University of Hertfordshire
  • Hugo Tabernero Guzmán
  • Complutense University of Madrid (IPARCOS)
  • Ricardo Dorda Laforet
  • Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
  • Dr. Lee R. Patrick
  • Centro de Astrobiología (CAB, CSIC-INTA)
  • Dr. Diego de la Fuente
  • R&D project manager
  • Dra. Sara Rodríguez Berlanas
  • Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
  • Emilio Trigueros Páez
  • Centro de Astrobiología (CAB, CSIC-INTA)
  • Pedro Pastor Seva
  • University of Alicante (Software and Computing Systems)

Research lines

The study of stellar evolution aims to understand the processes that change the observable appearance of stars over their lifetimes, and to work out the physics that governs them. Because stars live extraordinarily long lives, we cannot watch any given star change; instead, we infer stellar life stories by observing many stars at different stages of their lives.

Our group studies the evolution of high-mass stars, those far more massive than the Sun. These objects begin their lives as OB stars on the main sequence and later become supergiants, passing through different spectral types. Some end up as red supergiants, the largest stars in the universe, while others become Wolf-Rayet stars, shedding much of their atmosphere into the interstellar medium. All of them end their lives in a supernova explosion. Inside them many of the chemical elements are produced that go on to form rocky planets and the living beings that inhabit them. The natural laboratories the Universe offers for the study of stellar evolution are open clusters and binary systems. By studying their properties we can understand how high-mass stars evolve, and how, over the aeons, they have generated all the chemical richness we observe on Earth.

Massive stars

  • Fundamental properties. High-mass eclipsing binaries.
  • Stellar evolution: position of supergiants, Wolf-Rayet stars and others on evolutionary diagrams.

Projects

These days, pure research is rarely funded unless it is tied to the development of new technology. Astrophysicists obtain the funds we need to carry out our work by taking part in public funding calls, where we compete with our colleagues for the (generally scarce) budget available. Our team is involved in the following major instrument-development and scientific collaboration projects.

Astro Plus

The Astro+ project aims to be the largest database of high-mass stars, massive OB stars and red supergiants. The Astro+ application has been built using machine learning and Big Data by experts in both astrophysics and computer science.

A-SMASHER

To be completed.

DYNOSTAR

To be completed.

Spectral classification standards

Spectral classification in the MK system relies on a set of standard stars against which every new spectrum is compared. We maintain MKBtypeStds, a web tool within Astro+ that gathers the grid of classification standards for B-type stars, together with their spectra, and serves as a reference both for manual classification and for training the automatic methods we develop in the group.

HAYDN

HAYDN (High-precision AsteroseismologY of DeNse stellar fields) is a candidate space mission for the European Space Agency's M8 programme, led by Andrea Miglio (Università di Bologna) with Andrés Moya (Universitat de València) as deputy PI. It consists of a 1.2 m space telescope that, from the L2 Lagrange point, will continuously monitor each dense stellar field for up to 18 months: open and globular clusters, the Galactic bulge and nearby stellar systems, ranging from young clusters such as χ and h Persei to ancient globulars such as 47 Tuc.

Its high-precision photometry will deliver the first large-scale asteroseismic view of stars in environments of known age and composition, in order to test stellar evolution models at the percent level, establish an absolute stellar age scale, reconstruct the chronology of the Milky Way and study planetary systems across different Galactic environments. The proposal passed Step 1 of the M8 call in 2025 and delivered its Step 2 documentation to ESA in March 2026; the selection of candidates for study is expected at the end of 2026.

IACOB

The IACOB project, led by Sergio Simón Díaz, is a large library of high-resolution spectra of high-mass stars with early spectral types. Its IACOB-sweG extension, which we coordinate from Alicante, widens the library to the range of the spectrograph carried by the Gaia satellite.

Gaia

We have been part of the Spanish Network for Gaia (REG) since it was created, as well as of the European network GREAT. These networks were set up by Spanish and European scientists to prepare the scientific exploitation of the Gaia satellite, one of the most ambitious projects of the European Space Agency. The REG network is coordinated by Professor Francesca Figueras, and more than 100 professional astronomers and doctoral students belong to it.

On the occasion of the Gaia launch, the newspaper Información ran a feature on us.

MIRADAS

Miradas is a third-generation instrument for the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC). It is a powerful multi-object spectrograph of intermediate-to-high resolution operating in the infrared. The project, led by Prof. Stephen Eikenberry of the University of Florida, is currently under development. We have been part of the instrument's science team since it was conceived. The spectrograph is in fact built around four reference science cases, one of which is the study of high-mass stars in the Milky Way.

WEAVE

WEAVE is an instrument being built for the William Herschel Telescope (WHT). Once in operation, WEAVE will be the most powerful multi-object spectrograph ever built, able to take intermediate-resolution optical spectra of almost 1,000 stars simultaneously. WEAVE is a European project backed by a large international scientific consortium.

Members of our team belong to the instrument's science team, and we are involved in the conception and development of one of the major surveys to be carried out with it, Stellar, Circumstellar and Interstellar Physics (SCIP), led by Prof. Janet Drew of the University of Hertfordshire.

Funded projects

Ongoing

Completed

  • Comprehensive exploration of the infancy and old age of massive stars (PID2021-122397NB-C22 · Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, 2022-2025)
  • Artificial Intelligence tools for massive stars and for WEAVE (ASFAE/2022/017 · Generalitat Valenciana, 2022-2025)
  • Evolutionary stage of red supergiants in the Magellanic Clouds (CIGRIS/2021/160 · Generalitat Valenciana, 2023)
  • Revealing the Milky Way with Gaia (COST Action CA18104 · European Commission, 2019-2023)
  • Massive astrophysics: design, construction and scientific exploitation of the largest database on high-mass stars (PROMETEO/2019/041 · Generalitat Valenciana, 2019-2022)
  • Massive empirical study of stellar evolution: from protostars to the progenitors of core-collapse supernovae and gravitational-wave emitters (PGC2018-093741-B-C21 · Spanish Ministry of Economy and Business, 2019-2021)
  • High-mass stars as supernova progenitors (AYA2015-68012-C2-2-P · Spanish Ministry of Economy and Business, 2016-2018)
  • Formation and evolution of high-mass stars in the Milky Way (AYA2012-39364-C02-02 · Spanish Ministry of Economy and Business, 2013-2015)
  • High-mass stars in the infrared (AYA2010-21697-C05-05 · Spanish Ministry of Economy and Business, 2011-2013)
  • Optical Infrared Coordination Network for Astronomy (OPTICON) (INFRA-OPTICON · European Commission, 2010-2015)
  • Multiplicity and evolution of massive stars (AYA2008-06166-C03-03 · Spanish Ministry of Education, 2009-2011)
  • Massive stars: birth and evolution (AYA2005-00095 · Spanish Ministry of Education, 2005-2008)
  • International Gamma Ray Astrophysics Lab. Operations (ESP2002-04124-C03-03 · Spanish Ministry of Economy and Business, 2002-2005)
  • Populations of massive stars in Local Group galaxies (AYA2002-00814 · Spanish Ministry of Economy and Business, 2002-2005)
  • Evolution of chemical abundances with age in massive stars (AYA2000-1581-C02-02 · Spanish Ministry of Education, 2000-2001)

Outreach

Organised together with other astronomers from DFISTS at least once a year, our astronomy outreach days aim to bring the latest advances in astronomy and astrophysics to the people of Alicante. To that end, we invite the most respected Spanish experts (and, on occasion, experts from abroad) in a range of fields to give talks for the general public about their work.

In most years the event is held in late October or early November, though we sometimes also organise a series of talks in spring. Detailed information is circulated through university newsletters, notices to amateur astronomy societies and posters.

Useful links

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics

    European journal of astronomy and astrophysics, publishing research papers by professional astrophysicists.

  • Calar Alto

    Calar Alto astronomical observatory

  • CMD

    Tool for obtaining grids of stellar evolution models from the Padua Observatory

  • ESA

    European Space Agency

  • Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias

    The largest Spanish astrophysics research institute, on the island of Tenerife

  • Integral ISOC

    Science operations centre of the INTEGRAL high-energy observatory

  • Isaac Newton Group

    The La Palma telescopes (currently a consortium between the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Spain)

  • NASA

    United States space agency

  • European Southern Observatory

    A European organisation operating observatories in the deserts of Chile. It has the best astronomical instrumentation in the world

  • SEA

    Spanish Astronomical Society

  • Geneva tracks

    Tools for obtaining grids of stellar evolution models from the Geneva Observatory