Program: GS-2021B-Q-235

Hypervelocity stars are stars that exceed their local escape speed and, therefore, are candidates to be potentially unbound from the Milky Way. The different scenarios proposed to explain how these stars adquire such high Galactocentric velocities include a violent interaction with the supermasive black hole at the center of the Galaxy, accretion of satellite dwarf galaxies, and the disruption of globular clusters, among others. With this proposal, we aim to derive radial velocities for a sample of hypervelocity star candidates and reconstruct, together with the proper motions and parallaxes provided by the European space mission Gaia, their past and future orbits through the Galaxy. With this information, we will increase the statistics on this scarce population of stars, gain insights into the different mechanisms, and constrain the mass distribution and the escape speed in the Solar neighborhood.