Dear all,

On Tuesday 2 April, Victoria Antoci will give a seminar.

Title: Characterising the Interiors and Surroundings of A and F stars

Abstract: Why are there fewer planets around stars hotter than the Sun than we expect? What key aspects of stellar structure and evolution modify the energy transport in stellar interiors affecting the formation, evolution and dynamics of planetary systems? I aim to answer these seemingly unrelated questions by investigating the physical processes occurring in and around hot stars of intermediate-mass. This will be done by measuring stellar variability, employing theoretical models to interpret the observed data and characterising their planetary systems.

I will use available Kepler, TESS and ground-based data, however, I require multi-wavelengths observations of the same quality as TESS but with longer temporal coverage. This can only be done from space! Here I propose to develop a nano-satellite mission equipped with a miniature spectrograph or similar to gather the data required.