Speaker
Description
The variable sky offers a large number of different phenomena, from transient/explosive to periodic ones. The proposed capabilities of WST will have a huge impact in characterizing the physical mechanisms behind them. In this talk I will propose different topics, with focus on variable stars. Pulsating stars such as RR Lyrae and Cepheids (Classical, Anomalous, Type II) are wonderful population tracers that allow to constrain the star formation history, chemical evolution, and accretion history of the host galaxy. With this respect, WST will allow to characterize RR Lyrae stars over a large range of distances, complementing photometric surveys such as LSST, thus characterizing the early phases of the main component of the Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies. Moreover, WST will have a strong impact in the determination of distances, through the derivation of abundances for both young and old pulsating stars.
