Exoplanets and Protoplanetary Disks - Space Science Faculty
We combine multi-wavelength analysis of star-forming regions to study the dissipation of disks and the transitional disks together with studies of young transiting exoplanets around young stars to link the properties of both samples of objects. We foresee observations with JWST, VLT and ALMA among others to support these investigations, including the use of ESA's 1m Optical Ground Station (OGS) for targetted exoplanet transit searches in young star-forming regions.
Exoplanet research with Gaia is also actively on-going (see the Gaia Science section of this website) and interested researchers in working in these topics should contact directly Johannes Sahlmann (ESAC).
Scientists from the CARMENES project (Calar Alto high-Resolution search for M dwarfs with Exoearths with Near-infrared and optical Echelle Spectrographs) from the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) are also collocated at ESAC, near Madrid. Researchers interested in applying for a Research Fellowship to work with the CARMENES team at ESAC should contact directly José A. Caballero at CAB. ".
Researchers interested in intermediate-mass, young "Herbig Ae/Be" stars or in looking for forming planets in protoplanetary disks should contact Ignacio Mendigutia (CAB) to explore possible research projects together.
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The members of the exoplanets and protoplanetary disks group in 2022 are :
- Bruno Merín (Research staff at the ESAC Science Data Centre)
- Ana Heras (Research staff at the Scientific Support Department, at ESTEC, in The Netherlands)
- Nuria Huélamo (Researcher at Centro de Astrobiología CAB, ESAC)
- Héctor Cánovas (Scientist in the Gaia Science Operations Centre, ESAC)
- Patricio Yael Reller (ESA - UCL Ph.D. student)
- Antónia Vojteková (ESA - UCL Ph.D. student)
Former ESA Research Fellows, Ph.D. students, summer trainees in our group :
- Isabel Rebollido, former ESAC trainee, now Ph.D. student at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
- Catarina Alves de Oliveira, former RF (Research Fellow) at ESAC, now SMILE SOC Development Manager at ESAC, Spain.
- Hervé Bouy, former RF, now Researcher at the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux, in Bordeaux, France.
- Silvia Vicente, former RF, now at the University of Groningen, in Groningen, in the Netherlands.
- Loredana Spezzi, former RF, now at the EUMETSAT, in Frankfurt, Germany.
- Luca Matra, former ESAC trainee, now Ph.D. student at the Institute of Astronomy of the University of Cambridge, UK.
- Álvaro Ribas, former Ph.D. student, now Postdoctoral Fellow at the Boston University (USA) working with Dr. Catherine Espaillat.
- Pablo Riviere-Marichalar, former RF, now NANOCOSMOS postdoc at the Observatorio Astronómico Nacional, in Madrid, Spain.
- Sam Wilkinson, former ESAC science trainee in 2017.
- Ignacio Bustamante Bengoechea, former Ph.D. student at CAB/ESAC, graduated on 22 June 2017 at UAM.
Some publications from the group :
- Census of rho Oph candidate members from Gaia Data Release 2, Cánovas et al. 2019
- Searching for H-alpha emitting sources around MWC 758. SPHERE/ZIMPOL high-contrast imaging, Huélamo et al. 2019
- New member candidates in Upper Scorpius from Gaia DR1, Wilkinson et al. 2018
- The (w)hole survey: an unbiased sample study of transitional disks from Spitzer surveys, van der Marel et al. 2016
- Search for light curve modulations among Kepler candidates. Three very low-mass transiting companions Lillo-Box et al. 2016
Contact point: Bruno Merín
Interested in an ESA Research Fellowship in our group? Apply before the 19th of September of 2022 here.