Jose Vicente Perea-Calderon

ESA XMM-Newton


My name is Jose Vicente Perea-Calderon and I am going to explain
what is my job here at ESAC and what are my scientific interests.

Since January 2000 I am a member of the XMM-Newton Computer
Operator group. Recently this group merged into the ESAC Computer
Operator group which gives computer support to all missions and
teams here at ESAC, in addition to the XMM-Newton systems.

In addition to my technical job, I am doing a PhD thesis under the
supervision of Pedro Garcia-Lario.

My main research interest is Stellar Evolution. In particular,
evolution from the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) to become
Planetary Nebulae (PNe). This transition is crucial in the
evolution of low and intermediate-mass stars because it is in this
phase that the most important changes in the morphology and
chemistry of the star take place.

Due to the strong mass loss suffered during the AGB phase these
stars produce dense circumstellar envelopes formed by gas and dust.
This circumstellar material produces a lot of molecular and solid
state features in the infrared spectral range. In the most extreme
cases, these sources are only visible in the infrared. For this
reason the infrared observations are among the most important tools
for studying the evolution of these stars, and in some cases the
only one.

My first work was the construction of a wide evolutionary
classification of these transition objects based on their
mid-infrared spectra. All spectra were compiled from the ISO Data
Archive.

The classification was based on different spectral characteristics
such as:
        Dust temperature
        Solid state features
        Gas phase (molecular) features
        Excitation class in the Planetary Nebula case.
        etc

From this study we were able to develop an evolutionary sequence of
AGB to PN transition sources.

In the past few years I have been very interested in the study of
the most extreme sources which are heavily obscured in the optical
range, but are visible in the infrared. These source seem to come
from higher mass progenitor stars (above 2 solar masses) and in
some cases they may remain hidden during the whole AGB to PN
transition.

These studies are based on the analysis of photometric and
spectrocopic observations from space infrared observatories such
as IRAS, MSX, 2MASS, ISO and Spitzer. I have worked with public
catalog data as well as propietary data obtained as a co-I in
three Spitzer runs. I have also performed and analyzed photometric
and spectroscopic infrared observations at ground-based telescopes
as CST at Tenerife, Canary Islands, and the 3.6m Telescope at La
Silla, Chile.

As a continuation of my current activities on Spitzer runs I'm very
interested in future infrared projects such as Akari and Herschel
from which new exciting results are expected.