The Virtual Observatory Powered PhD Thesis

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the maturity of the Virtual Observatory by showcasing a PhD thesis that employs VO technologies for diverse astrophysical research projects, highlighting its routine scientific utility.

Contribution

It presents a comprehensive VO-powered PhD thesis with four distinct astrophysical research cases, illustrating the practical application of VO tools in routine scientific investigations.

Findings

Successful application of VO tools in diverse astrophysical research cases

Publication of refereed papers based on VO-enabled research

Validation of VO as a routine scientific research platform

Abstract

The Virtual Observatory has reached sufficient maturity for its routine scientific exploitation by astronomers. To prove this statement, here I present a brief description of the complete VO-powered PhD thesis entitled "Galactic and extragalactic research with modern surveys and the Virtual Observatory" comprising 4 science cases covering various aspects of astrophysical research. These comprize: (1) homogeneous search and measurement of main physical parameters of Galactic open star clusters in huge multi-band photometric surveys; (2) study of optical-to-NIR galaxy colors using a large homogeneous dataset including spectroscopy and photometry from SDSS and UKIDSS; (3) study of faint low-mass X-ray binary population in modern observational archives; (4) search for optical counterparts of unidentified X-ray objects with large positional uncertainties in the Galactic Plane. All these projects make heavy use of the VO technologies and tools and would not be achievable without them. So refereed papers published in the frame of this thesis can undoubtedly be added to the growing list of VO-based research works.