Asteroseismology and Exoplanets at Birmingham and Queen Mary

由于新的望远镜和卫星观测的质量和范围前所未有，这是研究恒星及其系外行星的黄金时代。这些数据使得利用星震学研究大量的恒星成为可能，星震学是通过观察和分析恒星的固有振荡来研究恒星；并发现了数千个新的、不同的系外行星系统。我们在这里的研究项目包括利用来自美国宇航局TESS和开普勒任务的精细光度数据进行星震研究。我们将探索低温亚巨星和低光度红巨星的恒星发电机和近地表磁活动的演变，例如测试恒星与附近双星同伴的相互作用是否会影响恒星发电机的作用。我们还将使用星震学对具有非常低质量双星伴星的振荡太阳型恒星和红巨星进行年龄测定，为理解本质上暗淡的恒星的活动演化提供关键的年龄诊断。我们还将发展和完善利用星震学推断恒星基本特性的方法。我们将利用帕拉纳天文台的SPECULOOS望远镜寻找环绕小恒星运行的地球大小的行星，然后利用JWST研究行星的大气层，寻找活跃生物圈的特征。与此同时，我们将描述一群围绕恒星运行的行星，它们具有特殊的化学特征，并确定这群行星是否与围绕类太阳恒星运行的行星不同。

It is a golden era for studies of stars and their exoplanets thanks to new telescope and satellite observations of unprecedented quality and scope. These data are making it possible to investigate large numbers of stars using asteroseismology, the study of stars by observation and analysis of their intrinsic oscillations; and have led to the discovery of thousands of new and diverse exoplanet systems.Our programme of research here involves the asteroseismic exploitation of exquisite photometric data from the NASA TESS and Kepler missions. We will explore the evolution of stellar dynamos and near-surface magnetic activity in cool sub-giants and low-luminosity red giants, testing for example whether interactions of stars with nearby binary companions can affect the action of stellar dynamos. We will also use asteroseismology to age oscillating solar-type and red-giant stars that have very low-mass binary companions, providing key age diagnostics for understanding the evolution of activity in intrinsically faint stars. We will also develop and refine methods for inferring the fundamental properties of stars using asteroseismology. We will use the SPECULOOS telescopes at the Paranal Observatory to search for Earth-sized planets orbiting small stars, and then use JWST we will study the planets' atmospheres to search for signatures of an active biosphere. In parallel, we will characterise a population of planets orbiting stars that peculiar chemical signatures, and establish whether this population is distinct from planets around Sun-like stars.