PhD in Astronomy, Institute of Astronomy, KU Leuven, Belgium
E-mail: maja.vuckovic@uv.cl
Telephone: +56 32 250 8304
Research
Formation and evolution of hot subdwarf stars, binary stellar evolution, compact pulsators and asteroseismology.
My research focuses on understanding the origin and evolution of extreme horizontal branch stars, the so-called hot subdwarfs (sdB/O). These fascinating objects are the product of binary stellar evolution and we still do not understand the details of binary interaction physics. Given that sdB/O are the direct product of binary evolution they are the natural laboratories for the physics of stellar mass transfer. And that is not all- these stars are also pulsators, they have starquakes that let us probe their internal structure through the interpretation of their frequency spectra. In order to study these stars I am using the high-resolution time series photometric and spectroscopic data from ground based and space telescopes, like Kepler, Tess, Gaia… By confronting the observations with the theoretical models I am able to constrain their crucial parameters in order to backtrace the evolution of hot subdwarf stars.
Teaching
Undergraduate: General Astronomy, Stellar astronomy, Astronomy Lab, Physical processes in Astrophysics
Graduate: Advanced stellar evolution, Binary stars, Asteroseismology, Observational techniques
