Stormy adolescence: detecting young planets through magnetic star-planet interaction

Objetivo

Young planets orbiting close to their host stars experience extreme space weather during a critical early evolutionary window that determines their long-term atmospheric survival. My recent discovery of planet-induced flaring in the young star-planet system HIP 67522 reveals a new phenomenon where close-in planets trigger massive stellar flares that boomerang radiation back onto the planet, accelerating atmospheric loss. My project will determine whether such magnetic star-planet interactions represent a universal evolutionary phase or a rare occurrence by conducting the first systematic population survey of approximately 10,000 young stars using high-precision time-domain photometry. No planets are known to orbit these stars a priori, so that detecting interaction will simultaneously give away the presence of a close-in companion. My team and I will thus develop a novel planet detection method exploiting flare clustering patterns to identify interacting systems without prior knowledge of planetary orbits, potentially discovering up to 200 new young exoplanets and increasing the known population by two orders of magnitude. Multiwavelength follow-up observations of known and detected systems will test against a set of promising interaction mechanisms. Whether we detect many interacting planets or establish stringent upper limits, this project will definitively answer if flaring interaction is a universal phase of planetary evolution. At the same time, we will deliver the first comprehensive star-by-star database of flaring activity evolution, essential for modeling planetary atmospheric escape across the exoplanet field.

Ámbito científico (EuroSciVoc)

Este proyecto aún no se ha clasificado con EuroSciVoc.
Sugiera los ámbitos científicos que considere más relevantes y ayúdenos a mejorar nuestro servicio de clasificación.