Jose Alejandro Garcia Varela

My research focuses on three fundamental areas of observational astronomy. One of them is the calibration of the extragalactic distance scale using Cepheid variables as distance indicators. The goal of this research is to calibrate the dependence of the period-luminosity relation of Cepheid variables with the metallicity of stellar populations in the LMC galaxy. The period-luminosity relation is a fundamental calibrator of the extragalactic distance scale.

Another of my research topics is the astrometry and machine learning, in which the distinction of young stars forming the open clusters of the Milky Way from field stars is performed. This makes it possible to establish the distance and age of these stellar populations, as well as the interstellar extinction in the direction in which they are located. The goal of this research is to create a detailed catalog of all open clusters in the Milky Way, in order to establish how the age and metallicity distributions of these clusters, compared to those of open clusters in nearby galaxies such as the LMC and SMC, provide information about the processes of star formation and evolution in the local Universe. Another topic of my interest is the classification of variable stars in various environments, such as in star-forming regions where there are T Tauri stars.

This research uses data acquired by the TESS space telescope. I am also interested in massive blue stars with decreasing disks that exist in the Milky Way and in nearby galaxies, and that have been observed by projects such as OGLE or Araucaria. I am also very interested in discovering the variable stars in the direction of the center of the Milky Way that are found in the observations of the VVV Survey project, such as the Miras, the long period variables, the eclipsing binaries and the RR Lyrae, among others.