Stellar magnetic activity & the environment of the youngest exoplanets

Gaitee Hussain, ESO Garching - 29.01.18

Abstract:

In order to understand the origins of our own solar system it is instructive to study the youngest counterparts of the Sun. Studies of young ~Myr solar-type stars reveal environments that are enormously energetic and variable. Much of this activity is driven by strong stellar magnetic fields.

Thanks to advances in instrumentation over the past decade we have now mapped the large scale surface magnetic fields in detail for over 20 young stars (~10 Myr or younger). I will summarise the state of play of our observations to date, showing the types of magnetic activity we have observed. I will also demonstrate how we can use our observations to robustly detect the presence of close-in planets, leading to the discovery of two of the youngest planets known to date.