Confirmation of Candidature - Candidate : Emma Nabbie

Giant planets play a pivotal role in shaping the evolution of the systems they inhabit. In multi-planet systems, this can mean determining the fate of their companions, just as Jupiter and Saturn sculpted our own solar system. As they migrate, companions to giant planets may exhibit inclined or aperiodic orbits under the influence of the giant planet's gravity. These dynamical configurations can be revealed through observations via the transit method, probing the history of a multi-planet system by characterizing its architecture. 

In Paper I, I will make use of archival {\Kepler} data to investigate the history of a system that hosts a warm, giant planet and an unseen companion to probe a new type of planet migration. I will then explore more violent migration mechanisms through investigation of single-planet systems. Without companions, giant planets may migrate too close to their star, triggering mass loss via tidal effects and exposing their cores. This allows rare opportunities to directly study the nascent stages of giant planet formation and test theoretical requirements for producing this class of object. 

In Paper II, I will use ESO's ESPRESSO instrument to measure the mass of a stripped planet core and infer a more common requirement of giant planet formation. By studying single giant planets and their less-lonely counterparts, we can gain more insight into the diverse origins of these systems. 

These projects will also facilitate the development of open-source code that will conduct dynamical analysis of multi-planet systems \textit{en masse}, the results of which will be compiled in Paper III. This large-scale characterization of multi-planet systems will facilitate the statistical analysis of different formation pathways, allowing us to determine the uniqueness of our own origins.

For more information, please email the Graduate Research school or phone 0746 311088.