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

这项提议是举办一个讲习班，直接与通过现有的INSPIRE(促进跨学科研究和教育的国家科学基金综合支助)奖开展的工作有关，该奖项题为“建立恒星和行星之间的磁性相互作用的模型”。目前，已通过地面和天基天文技术发现了1800多个太阳系以外的已确认行星系统(即太阳系外行星或系外行星)，另有3600个候选系统有待确认。最近的这些发现导致与系外行星研究有关的研究急剧增长，最终目标是发现和表征地球大小的宜居系统。相关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。拟议的跨学科和国际讲习班将在莱斯大学的PIS机构举行，以促进就磁场在地球以外的行星的宜居性中所起的作用进行必要的讨论。拟议的讲习班将加强INSPIRE项目正在开展的工作，将空间物理界的技术和方法应用于传统的系外行星天体物理研究领域。该项目团队在对地球等岩石行星以及木星和土星等气体巨星的磁层进行计算建模方面拥有丰富的专业知识。他们将把他们的磁层代码与现有的日光层磁流体力学(MHD)模型结合起来，以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将这些组合模型应用于更广泛的恒星-行星相互作用类别，方法是对模型进行缩放，以模拟广泛的恒星参数。这个跨学科的研讨会将把太阳物理学家和天文物理学家聚集在一起，进行独特的讨论。这些类型的面对面合作对于发展科学和发展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。理想的情况是在莱斯大学举行，由在这一领域处于世界领先地位的PI领导。

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.