Physics Of Extreme Massive Stars

Due to the continuing pandemic situation, which does not allow us to travel between Europe and our Partner institutes to perform the needed project tasks in a decent and safe environment, with face-to-face training and teaching, we decided to suspend the POEMS project. The suspension will start on December 1, 2020 and last for 10 months, unless the global situation would allow us to resume the project earlier.

On November 26, Michaela Kraus from the Astronomical Institute in Ondřejov was invited to present a seminar talk with title "B[e] supergiants - a yet unclear transition phase in the evolution of massive stars" at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences, in Toruń, Poland. Due to the ongoing pandemic, this seminar was given via videoconference. After the presentation, she had a lively discussion with the Polish colleagues on many aspects of B[e] supergiants, circumstellar disks, molecules and their detectability, and the influence of binarity on shaping circumstellar environments.

The Mid-Term Meeting of POEMS was held virtually on 26. and 29. October 2020. Due to the participation of team members from different time zones, we had decided to split the usual 1-day event into two half-day events. During this meeting, the POEMS members presented the progress of their project to their Project Officer from the European Commission. The summary about the project progress was presented by the Coordinator, Michaela Kraus from ASU. Moreover, many team members presented scientific highlights. In particular, we had presentations from Olga Maryeva (ASU), María Laura Arias (UNLP), Anna Aret (UTARTU), Omar Benvenuto (UNLP), Roberto Venero (UNLP), Michel Curé (UV), Alex Gormaz-Matamala (UV), Lydia Cidale (UNLP), Rodolfo Vallverdú (UNLP), Janmammad Rustamov (ShAO), Alejandra Christen (UV, formerly PUCV), Yanina Cochetti (UNLP), and Tiina Liimets (ASU). Moreover, a summary about our dissemination and outreach activities has been presented by Julieta Sánchez Arias (ASU). After the meeting, POMES members were discussing and coordinating the next tasks within the project.

The Annual Meeting of the Argentinian Astronomy Association took place virtually on October 13-16, 2020, at which several POEMS team members from the University of La Plata participated. The following contributions were presented:

Alex Gormaz-Matamala was invited on 12. October 2020 to present a seminar talk with title "Self-consistent solutions for line-driven winds of hot massive stars using Lambert W-function" at the Masaryk University in Brno, where he presented his current work studying stellar winds beyond m-CAK theory.

The POEMS team members from all partner institutes joined for a virtual meeting on Thursday, 8 October 2020. They discussed the content of our report that needs to be presented during the POEMS Mid-Term-Meeting, and distributed the tasks for preparation of the individual Science Highlights and the Outreach Results.

A number of POEMS team members from the Astronomical Institute in Ondřejov, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, and Universidad de Valparaíso participated in an online Zoom meeting held on 27 July 2020. We discussed about the latest progress in stellar wind and disk modeling as well as about the status and progress of the acquisition and analysis of optical imaging and infrared spectroscopic data needed for POEMS. Moreover, we developped strategies for the dissemination of our latest results. In particular, we discussed about preparation of presentations that will be submitted for the virtual national Astronomy Meetings that will be held in Argentina in October 2020 and in Chile in December 2020.

A number of people from the Astronomical Institute in Ondřejov were listening to the talks and poster sessions at the MOBSTER-1 virtual conference, and Olga Maryeva actively participated and presented a poster with title "CPD-64 2731: a massive spun-up and rejuvenated high-velocity runaway star". She introduced her poster in a short "flash-talk" and answered questions later on in a Zoom chat-room.

The Perek 2-m telescope of the Astronomical Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, which is one of the most important telescopes used for the data collection within the frame of POEMS, underwent a major upgrade. The old mirror-based optics have been replaced with fibers, enhancing significantly the efficiency of the throughput. In addition, a photometric camera has been added. After this successful upgrade, the telescope is ready to continue providing data for our project.

The inauguration of the telescope was held on 2020 June 26. For this purpose, a press conference was given during which Michaela Kraus highlighted the POEMS project to the press and TV present during that event.

In June 2020, Janmammad Rustamov from the Department of Stellar Atmosphere Physics and Magnetism of the Shamakhy Astrophysical Observatory of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences gave an interview to the EU neighbors media with title "The life of giant stars: Azerbaijan astronomers seek answers with help from European partners"

Members of the University of La Plata participated at the IX La Plata International School S-PLUS: The Universe in true colors, which was held in Buenos Aires, in February 2020. A poster with title GEMINI near-infrared spectra of B[e] star candidates was presented by Torres A. F., Arias M. L., Cidale L. S., Kraus M., Cochetti Y. R.

Olga Maryeva was invited on 26. February 2020 to present a seminar talk with title "Romano's star - why we continue to study it" at the Astronomical Institute of the Charles University in Prague, where she presented her new research results on this fascinating LBV/post-LBV object.

On 20. January 2020 our POEMS team member Olga Maryeva was awarded the Jan Frič price for the year 2019. She obtained this award for her excellent research results in the field of "Massive stars in late evolutionary stages and their environment".

After she has been awarded the price, she provided a lecture summarizing her research results. Olga's research focuses on two types of evolved massive stars: the transition phases of Luminous Blue Variables and Wolf-Rayet stars.

Observatório Nacional in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, prepared their new calendar for the year 2020 in which they devoted the project presented in June to POEMS.

On Friday, 22 November 2019, Dr. Julieta Sánchez Arias from Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina, presented the second popular science talk at the Planetarium of La Plata. During her presentation with title "Stellar Concert" ("Concierto estelar") she introduced the public into the challenges of modeling a special type of pulsating stars, the so-called hybrid δ Scuti/γ Dor stars, and the analysis of their light-curves.

On Friday, 15 November 2019, Dr. Alejandra Daniela Romero from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, presented the first popular science talk at the Planetarium of La Plata. During her presentation with title "Earthquakes in Stars" ("Sismos en las estrellas") she introduced the public to the general field of stellar pulsations in white dwarf stars, and the similarity of studying pulsations in these old stars with studying palaeontology on Earth.

The Summer School with title "Pulsations Along Stellar Evolution" was organized within the frame of the La Plata International School (LAPIS) series. It took place at the Facultad de Ciencas Astrónmicas y Geofísicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, La Plata, Argentina, from 11. - 22. Nov 2019.

The aim of this Summer School was to train the next generation of researchers in the field of stellar pulsations and to sensitize them for the importance of asteroseismology for our understanding of stellar structure and the evolution of stars.

The subject of the Summer School was chosen according to one of the main research topics within POEMS, i.e., pulsations and their relation to and influence on driving mass-loss, especially in evolved massive stars. The scope of the School was not limited to the main research topics spanned by POEMS, but was kept much broader, covering pulsating stars in diverse evolutionary stages.

In total, members from six different institutes involved in POEMS have been actively involved in the preparation and implementation of the Summer School. Four of the eight teachers who provided dedicated classes and exercises related to their research fields and competences are active POEMS members from ASU, PUCV, UGOE, and UNLP. The other four teachers had been invited based on their fields of expertise in order to provide a greater diversity of topics related to stellar pulsations and to complement the fields covered by the POEMS teachers.

The topic of the school attracted participants from 13 different countries all over the world. Quite naturally for a school that was organized in Argentina, the majority of participants came from Latin-America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Nicaragua), but we also had participants from several European countries (Czech Republic, Estonia, Spain, and United Kingdom) as well as from Asia (Georgia), Africa (Egypt), Australia, and the United States of America.

Within the frame of the Summer School, two public talks related to stellar pulsations have been presented at the Planetarium of La Plata that attracted many visitors.

• Programme, including links to the presentations