Multi-disciplinary Workshop: Modeling the Magnetic Interactions between Stars and Planets

该提案是为一个研讨会直接相关的工作正在通过现有的INSPIRE（综合NSF支持促进跨学科研究和教育）奖题为“建模恒星和行星之间的磁相互作用”。 目前，通过地面和空间天文技术已经发现了超过1800个太阳系外的行星系统（即太阳系外行星或系外行星），另有3600个候选系统尚未确认。这些最近的发现导致与系外行星研究有关的研究急剧增长，最终目标是发现和描述地球大小的宜居系统。相关的INSPIRE项目的主要目标是提高我们对恒星及其行星之间相互作用的理解。拟议的跨学科国际研讨会将在莱斯大学的PI机构举行，以促进关于磁场在地球以外行星的可居住性中所起作用的必要讨论。 拟议的讲习班将加强INSPIRE项目正在开展的工作，以便将空间物理界的技术和方法应用于系外行星这一传统的天体物理学研究领域。该项目团队在岩石行星（如地球）和气体巨星（如木星和土星）的磁层计算建模方面具有重要的专业知识。他们将联合收割机的磁层代码与现有的日光层磁流体动力学模型相结合，以便模拟太阳风与行星磁层的相互作用。该项目的一个关键方面是通过缩放模型来模拟广泛的恒星参数，将这些组合模型应用于更广泛的恒星-行星相互作用。 这个跨学科的研讨会将汇集太阳和天体物理学家进行独特的讨论。这种面对面的合作对于发展科学和增加两个学科之间的交流渠道至关重要。拟议的讲习班与INSPIRE项目直接相关。它理想地在莱斯大学举行，由PI领导，PI是该领域的世界领导者。

This proposal is for a workshop directly related to the work being performed through an existing INSPIRE (Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education) award entitled "Modeling the Magnetic Interactions between Stars and Planets". Currently, more than 1800 confirmed planetary systems beyond our solar system (i.e. extrasolar planets or exoplanets) have been discovered through ground and space-based astronomical techniques, with an additional 3600 candidate systems yet to be confirmed. These recent discoveries have resulted in dramatic growth in research related to the study of exoplanets with the ultimate objective being the discovery and characterization of habitable Earth-sized systems. The primary goal of the related INSPIRE project is to improve our understanding of the interactions between stars and their planets. The proposed interdisciplinary and international workshop will be held at the PIs institution, Rice University, to facilitate necessary discussions on the roles that magnetic fields play in the habitability of planets other than Earth. The proposed workshop will enhance the work being performed by the INSPIRE project to apply techniques and methods drawn from the space physics community to the traditionally astrophysical research area of exoplanets. The project team has significant expertise in computational modeling of the magnetospheres of rocky planets like the Earth and gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn. They will combine their magnetospheric code with available magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) models of the heliosphere in order to model interactions of the solar wind with planetary magnetospheres. A key aspect of the project is to apply these combined models to a much broader class of star-planet interactions by scaling the models to simulate a wide range of stellar parameters. This interdisciplinary workshop will bring together solar and astro-physicists for unique discussions. These types of in person collaborations are essential for evolving the science and for growing the avenues of communication between the two disciplines. The proposed workshop is directly relevant to the INSPIRE project. It is ideally held at Rice University and led by the PI who is a world leader in this field.