Star formation and early stellar evolution in the era of Gaia

欧洲航天局的盖亚天体测量卫星不久将发布其第三个天体测量目录，提供10亿颗恒星的距离和运动。盖亚-ESO巡天是在ESO的甚大望远镜（VLT）上进行的一项大规模光谱计划，旨在支持盖亚，并提供约10万颗恒星的视距速度和化学丰度。杰弗里斯教授带领一个小组研究如何将这些数据集结合到星团中，以彻底改变我们对恒星形成、早期恒星演化和恒星年龄的时间尺度的理解。博士生将使用盖亚和盖亚- eso数据集来选择星团中恒星的干净样本，并使用这些数据来测试和校准恒星演化模型和基准年龄估计技术，重点是使用光球化学成分（特别是锂的丰度）提供的正交约束作为检查恒星内部物理的一种手段。该项目将涉及使用先进的统计技术处理大型世界级数据集，并与欧洲和美国研究人员网络合作。

ESA's Gaia astrometry satellite will shortly release its third astrometric catalogue, providing distances and motions for a billion stars. The Gaia-ESO survey is a massive spectroscopic programme carried out at ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) aiming to support Gaia and provide line-of-sight velocities and chemical abundances for some 100,000 stars. Professor Jeffries leads a group looking at ways of combining these datasets in stellar clusters to revolutionise our understanding of the timescales for star formation, early stellar evolution and stellar ages. A PhD student would use the Gaia and Gaia-ESO datasets to select clean samples of stars in stellar clusters and use these to test and calibrate stellar evolution models and benchmark age estimation techniques, with a focus on using the orthogonal constraints offered by photospheric chemical composition (particularly the abundance of lithium) as a means of examining the physics of stellar interiors. The project will involve working with large, world-class datasets using advanced statistical techniques, and collaborating with a network of European and US researchers.