Christian Schneider - Personal Profiles

Main Research Fields

Star & Planet formation

I am particularly interested in the dynamical aspects of star formation. These involve the launching and evolution of protostellar jets as well as the accretion process. Both processes are key to the angular momentum evolution of the forming stellar system and therefore related to virtually all aspects of the stellar system including the conditions for planet formation. I use high resolution (spatial/spectral) data to advance our understanding of these integral ingredrients of the star formation process.

Planetary atmospheres

Planets orbiting in close proximity of their host star experience highly elevated levels of high energy radiation. This strongly modifies their atmospheric structure compared to solar system planets leading, e.g., to expanded atmospheres that can be measured with Lya transit observations. I am interested in understanding the effect of the high energy radiation on planetary atmospheres using observations and simulations.

Stellar activity

Low-mass stars pocess an internal dynamo resulting in a reasonably strong stellar magnetic field. While the solar dynamo is well established, the situation is very different for distant stars. One particularly new, interesting feature of stellar activity are super flares, i.e., eruptive events in stellar coronae that strongly increase the energy output within seconds to minutes. How these events are related to the underlying stellar magnetic field are currently unclear and we use X-ray observations to further study these phenomena.