Physics Graduate Student Seminar with Nathan Whitsett on Much a Flare About Something: The Role of Stellar Flares in Exoplanet ResearchUn

Stellar flares play a unique role in exoplanet research. Most commonly, they are discussed in the context of planetary habitability, where planets close to a flaring star are prone to the devastating effects of high energy radiation, potentially degrading and eroding its atmosphere over prolonged exposures; however, stellar flares provide an opportunity to probe the magnetic environments around their host stars, which may offer a way to identify and constrain exoplanetary magnetospheres, an elusive, but crucial, parameter for habitability. This talk will discuss current methods in detecting stellar flares and report on the progress of an automated flare detection pipeline that I have been developing. Additionally, I will discuss the current understanding of the underlying physics of stellar flares, what role exoplanets might have in inducing them, the current gaps in our models of flare morphology and composition, and the broader context of what the findings of this pipeline might have on exoplanetary atmospheres and habitability.