Speaker
Description
Hypervelocity stars (HVSs) are stars which have been ejected from the Galactic Centre (GC) at velocities of up to a few thousand km/s. They are tracers of the Galactic potential and can be used to infer properties of the GC, such as the initial-mass function and dynamical history. HVSs are rare, however, with only about a dozen promising candidates discovered so far. Discovering and characterising additional HVSs would allow us to fully exploit their scientific potential, but even non-detections can and have been used to provide important constraints on the ejection of HVSs and on the properties of the GC. In a recent survey, we obtained follow-up observations of prime HVS candidates identified in Gaia using a novel method. Through the combination of the non-detection of new HVSs in our survey with sophisticated simulations, we have been able to significantly improve upon current constraints for the production of HVSs and the properties of the GC. In this talk, I will present these results. In addition, I will describe the discovery space of HVSs that still remain unidentified in the full Gaia catalogue, containing some 2B stars.
