Related papers: An Earth-like stellar wind environment for Proxima…
In the last decade, about a dozen giant exoplanets have been directly imaged in the IR as companions to young stars. With photometry and spectroscopy of these planets in hand from new extreme coronagraphic instruments such as SPHERE at VLT…
Close-in terrestrial exoplanets around M dwarfs reside in dense, magnetized winds, where non-ideal plasma coupling can strongly affect how electromagnetic energy is redistributed within the dayside interaction region. We present…
The search for exoplanetary radio emission has resulted in zero conclusive detections to date. Various explanations for this have been proposed, from the observed frequency range, telescope sensitivity, to beaming of the emission. In a…
With more than 4,300 confirmed exoplanets and counting, the next milestone in exoplanet research is to determine which of these newly found worlds could harbor life. Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), spawn by magnetically active,…
The nearby M dwarf WX UMa has recently been detected at radio wavelengths with LOFAR. The combination of its observed brightness temperature and circular polarisation fraction suggests that the emission is generated via the…
Planets in close-in orbit interact with the magnetized wind of their hosting star. This magnetic interaction was proposed to be a source for enhanced emissions in the chromosphere of the star, and to participate in setting the migration…
Forming planets around young, fast-rotating solar-like stars are exposed to an intense X-ray/extreme ultraviolet radiation field and strongly magnetized stellar winds, as a consequence of the high magnetic activity of these stars. Under…
The space-weather conditions that result from stellar winds significantly impact the habitability of exoplanets. The conditions can be calculated from first principles if the necessary boundary conditions -- namely on the plasma density in…
Our Solar system is almost entirely devoid of material interior to Mercury's orbit, in sharp contrast to the multiple Earth masses of material commonly residing within the analogous region of extrasolar planetary systems. Recent work has…
Several mission concepts are being studied to directly image planets around nearby stars. It is commonly thought that directly imaging a potentially habitable exoplanet around a Sun-like star requires space telescopes with apertures of at…
Binary systems containing a massive star and a non-accreting pulsar present strong interaction between the stellar and the pulsar winds. The properties of this interaction, which largely determine the non-thermal radiation in these systems,…
Astronomical surveys have identified numerous exoplanets with bulk compositions that are unlike the planets of the Solar System, including rocky super-Earths and gas-enveloped sub-Neptunes. Observing the atmospheres of these objects…
The atmospheres of close-in planets are strongly influenced by mass loss driven by the high-energy (X-ray and extreme ultraviolet, EUV) irradiation of the host star, particularly during the early stages of evolution. We recently developed a…
Interactions between the winds of stars and the magnetospheres and atmospheres of planets involve many processes, including the acceleration of particles, heating of upper atmospheres, and a diverse range of atmospheric loss processes.…
Context. High-contrast imaging is currently the only available technique for the study of the thermodynamical and compositional properties of exoplanets in long-period orbits. The SPICES project is a coronagraphic space telescope dedicated…
We simulate the formation of planetary systems around Alpha Centauri B. The N-body accretionary evolution of a 1/r disk populated with 400-900 lunar-mass protoplanets is followed for 200 Myr. All simulations lead to the formation of…
We aim to demonstrate that the presence and mass of an exoplanet can now be effectively derived from the astrometry of another exoplanet. We combined previous astrometry of $\beta$ Pictoris b with a new set of observations from the GRAVITY…
The magnetic activity of a star -- which modulates the stellar wind outflow -- shapes the immediate environments of orbiting planets and induces atmospheric loss thereby impacting their habitability. We perform a detailed parameter space…
While thousands of exoplanets have been confirmed, the known properties about individual discoveries remain sparse and depend on detection technique. To utilize more than a small section of the exoplanet dataset, tools need to be developed…
Absorption of high-energy radiation in planetary thermospheres is believed to lead to the formation of planetary winds. The resulting mass-loss rates can affect the evolution, particularly of small gas planets. We present 1D, spherically…