Planet habitability and star-planet interactions

Project “Planet habitability in light of state-of-the-art models of host stars” under the COST TD 1308 ORIGINS Origins and Evolution of Life on Earth and in the Universe.

Founded by COST / SEFRI (starting on Feb.1, 2015) and lead by Prof.Charbonnel, Swiss representative in the COST TD1308

The discovery of more than one thousand exoplanets of incredible diversity as well as a better understanding of the complex interactions  between extrasolar planets and their host stars make the present a particularly exciting time to bring new clues on the fundamental question of planet habitability.

This project aims at developing tailor-made stellar-planet models to investigate the key factors that influence planet hability all along the evolution of host stars and of their planetary systems. These model predictions will be used to determine reliable mass, ages, and habitable conditions of extrasolar confirmed planets and planetary candidates whose list extends constantly. They will be made available to the astrophysics and astrobiology communities through a database and web tools, which is a key milestone of COST Action TD 1308. Our ultimate goal is to build a clear picture of hability conditions (or “habitability map”) for exoplanets around nearby stars as well as in different Galactic environments and at different cosmic times.

This project is important for the scientific exploitation of dedicated present and future space missions and ground-based instruments in which Switzerland is strongly engaged (Corot/ESA, Kepler/NASA, PLATO/ESA, PRIMA, ESPRESSO, HARPS-NEF, HARPS-FP, SPHERE, EulerCam). It is lead by Prof.Charbonnel, Swiss representative in the COST TD1308, co-leader of WG1 “Understanding the formation and evolution of planetary systems and habitable planets”.

Related papers

Strugarek, Bolmont, Mathis, Brun, Réville, Gallet,  Charbonnel, 2017 “The fate of close-in planets: tidal or magnetic migration?” ApJ Letters 847, L16

Bolmont, Gallet, Mathis, Charbonnel, Amard, Alibert, 2017 “Tidal dissipation in rotating low-mass stars and implications for the orbital evolution of close-in massive planets. II. Effect of stellar metallicity” A&A 604 A113

Gallet, Bolmont, Mathis, Charbonnel, Amard, 2017 “Tidal dissipation in rotating low-mass stars and implications for the orbital evolution of close-in planets. I. From the PMS to the RGB at solar metallicity” A&A 604 A112

Gallet, Charbonnel, Amard, Brun, Palacios, Mathis, 2016 “Impacts of stellar evolution and dynamics on the habitable zone: The role of rotation and magnetic activity” A&A 597 A14

Gallet, Charbonnel, Amard, 2016, “Host Star Evolution for Planet Habitability”, Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres (OLEB), Volume 46, Issue 4, pp.395-401

Gallet, Charbonnel, Amard, Brun, Palacios, Mathis, 2016, “Impacts of stellar evolution and dynamics on the habitable zone: The role of rotation and magnetic activity”, A&A, in press (arXiv:1608.06772)

Bolmont, Gallet, Mathis, Charbonnel, Amard, 2016, “Effect of rotation, tidal dissipation history and metallicity on the evolution of close-in planets”, conference Astrofluids 2016, in press (arXiv:1611.08243)