Time-domain and multi-messenger astronomy are key priorities identified by major planning exercises, such as the Astro2020 decadal survey. All current and upcoming facilities together can follow up only a few percent of the expected transient alerts, while WST will enable maximum operational flexibility and rapid data processing in order to support the under-characterized transient sky and...
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...
The Galactic bulge, the densely populated central region of the Milky Way, extends a few kilo-parsecs vertically above and below the Galactic plane. This region is pivotal for understanding the formation and evolutionary history of our Galaxy. Key to this understanding are the structural parameters of the bulge. Classical pulsators, such as RR Lyrae stars, Miras, and δ Scuti stars, are...
The RR Lyrae stars have proven to be a fundamental tool for investigating the history of the Universe, serving as both distance indicators and witnesses to ancient merging events that shaped the Milky Way.
Thanks to the large diameter, field of view and multiplexing of WST, it will be possible to observe for the first time in high-resolution spectroscopy a large number of distant (>100 kpc)...
The star formation histories (SFHs) in Local Group dwarf galaxies give essential insights into their evolution and interaction with the environment that help us understand their role into the formation of large structures. Resolved stellar populations, analyzed through the synthetic Color-Magnitude Diagram (CMD) method, have been pivotal in reconstructing detailed SFHs. The Wide Spectroscopic...
The upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) that will be conducted by the Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO) promises to boost the number of new ultra-faint dwarf (UFD) galaxies discovered in the Milky Way halo, providing crucial insights into their nature and their role in the evolution of their host galaxies. However, characterizing these elusive systems and unraveling their unique role in...
