Research

Planet Formation and Early Evolution through the Lens of Young Transiting Planets

During my PhD I am focussing on characterization of exoplanet atmospheres using space based facilities such as HST and JWST. I specifically work on young transiting planets. These are a fairly new class of objects which allow us to probe early evolution of planetary systems.  The key questions driving my research are:

• Where and how do planets form and evolve?

• How do young planets compare to their mature counterparts?

• What are the mechanisms driving early evolution and what is their timescale?

To address these questions, I have observed some these young planets with HST and JWST.  I use transmission spectroscopy to measure the size of the atmospheres of these planets and infer the chemical composition, temperature and mass. However, these young planets are extremely challenging to study because their host stars are extremely active and exhibit large flares and strong rotational variability. Therefore, I have developed expertise in modelling noisy  stellar lightcurves and extracting transmission spectrum of young planets. Using thse measurements,  I constrain the location of formation of these planets and compare their atmospheres to the mature planet population to understand early evolutionary processes.