Stephen Carolan

About Me

My research focuses on star-planet interactions. This includes how the Earth's magnetic field interacts with the solar wind as seen above, and how the escaping atmospheres of more extreme Hot Jupiters and Warm Neptunes interact with the winds of their host stars.

To investigate these interactions I use 3D magnetohydrodynamic models to simulate the local environment around a planet. Using Tecplot, a 3d visualisation tool, and languages like Python and IDL, I analyse the huge datasets these models produce, gaining insights into these star-planet interactions.

To read the research papers I have produced, or to take a look at some of the posters I have created for conferences, click the buttons below.

• Papers
• Posters

Papers

Earth's Magnetosphere in Time

As the Sun evolved, the solar wind gradually became weaker and weaker. As a result, the interaction between Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind changed with time. In this work we quanitfy this wind-magnetic field interaction over the Sun's main sequence lifetime.

• Evolution of Earth's Magnetosphere

The stellar wind and Ly-alpha

Close-in exoplanets can lose their hydrogen atmospheres through hydrodynamic escape. The stellar wind, if strong enough, can confine the volume occupied by the escape atmosphere. In this work we examine the effect increasing the stellar wind strength has on the observational signatures of atmospheric escape.

• The stellar wind and Ly-alpha

Atmospheric escape in AU Mic b

AU Mic b is a newly discovered Warm Neptune orbiting with a debris disk that surrounds a young M dwarf star. On one hand, the high energy flux young close in planets receive can lead to strong atmopsheric evaporation. On the other, the winds of young M dwarf stars are strong enough to confine the outflowing atmosphere. In this work we examine these two competing effects, and propose constraints on the mass loss rate of AU Mic, depending on what future observations looking for atmospheric escape find.

• Atmospheric escape in AU Mic b

Posters

• ExSS-IV - Earth's Magnetosphere - 2019

• Exo 3 Online - AU mic b - 2020

• MACH Centre - Irradiation vs Strong Stellar Winds - 2021

Contact

Feel free to send me an email at carolast@tcd.ie, or a message on one of the platforms below!

• Email
• LinkedIn
• GitHub

Elements

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