Postdoctoral Researcher - Characterizing Young Star-planet Systems and their Flaring Activity

Postdoctoral Researcher - Characterizing Young Star-planet Systems and their Flaring Activity

Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research

Göttingen, Germany

In recent years, exoplanetary science has undergone a major shift - moving from exoplanet detection towards understanding star-planet systems as a whole, including the host star, interplanetary medium, and galactic context. Specifically, tidal and magnetic interactions between planets and their host stars have been recognized to be able to modulate the evolution of both, including the atmospheric evolution of the planet and its habitability. The newly established ERC StG project PLANETARE seeks a postdoctoral researcher with a background in stellar magnetism and/orexoplanetary science to develop novel ways of detecting and characterizing the mutual influence of stars and planets, with a focus on the influence of planets in short orbits on the magnetism of their host stars. At the core of the project is a new way to find exoplanets: detecting them through their magnetic interaction with the host star. This position builds the observational foundation - the sample, the activity catalog, and the geometry of the systems - and confirms any transiting planets among the interacting systems.

The position

• Compile the most accurate and complete flaring activity catalog to date using space-borne photometry
• Search the sample of flaring stars for transiting planet candidates using space-borne photometry
• Constrain the orientation of the rotational and magnetic axes of interacting systems
• Measure stellar activity characteristics and their predictive power for interaction

Your qualification

• A PhD in physics or astrophysics (PhD must be awarded by the start date)
• Previous experience in observational astronomy, ideally including space-borne optical photometry
• The ability to work in a team
• A good command of the English language