Research Area: PLANETS AND STAR FORMATION

Topics covered in this research area

  • Detection and characterisation of extrasolar planets
  • Observational methods to study the earliest stages of star formation
  • The circumstellar environment of high and low mass stars
  • Star formation at the Galactic Centre

Thesis topics offered on Planets and Star Formation

Thesis topic Thesis supervisor(s)
Studying the magnetic atmospheres of young stars Mark Casali
Detection and photometry of exoplanets with multiple-frame, high-contrast methods Szymon Gladysz and
Markus Kissler-Patig
Star Formation: mapping young Suns and protoplanetary environments Gaitee Hussain
High-mass Star Formation at High-Angular Resolution Liz Humphreys
Use of CO rotional vibrational absorption spectroscopy to study physical conditions of very early stages for star formation Hans-Ulrich Käufl
Exo - Planets in the Open Cluster M67 Luca Pasquini and
Claudio Melo
Dust in 3d: From protostars and stellar clusters to AGN Ralf Siebenmorgen
The Formation and Early Evolution of Massive Stars Mario van den Ancker
Optical-Infrared Studies of Planet Formation Around Intermediate-Mass Stars Mario van den Ancker

Scientific Staff in Garching working on Planet and Star Formation

Faculty

Name Interests

Henri Boffin 		Scientific interests:
  • Close binaries and Type Ia SN progenitors
  • Binary star formation and evolution
  • Astro-tomography
  • Hydrodynamical simulations

Daniel Bramich 		Scientific interests:
  • Extra-solar planet detection and characterisation, principally via the transit and microlensing methods
  • Variable stars
  • High precision photometric methods, principally difference imaging

Mark Casali 		Scientific interests:
  • Star formation and young stellar evolution
  • Magnetic fields on young stars
  • Infrared instrumentation

Fernando Comeron

Scientific interests:
  • Very young stellar objects
  • Dynamics of the insterstellar medium
  • Galactic structure
Personal home page

Thomas Dall 		Scientific interests:
  • Stellar magnetic fields and activity
  • Planets, disks, and star-planet interactions
  • Stellar variability
  • Binary star evolution
  • High-resolution spectroscopy

Christian Hummel 		Scientific interests:
  • Optical and near-IR interferometry
  • Double stars and stellar evolution
  • Star formation
Personal home page

Liz Humphreys 		Scientific interests:
  • Central Parsecs of AGN
  • High-Mass Star Formation
  • Evolved Star Mass Loss
  • Millimetre and Submillimetre Astronomy

Gaitee Hussain 		Scientific interests:
  • Magnetic activity in cool stars and stellar clusters
  • Optical, NIR and X-ray spectroscopy of stars and circumstellar environments
  • T Tauri and pre-main sequence stars
  • Stellar surface imaging
Personal home page

Hans-Ulrich Käufl 		Scientific interests:
  • Stellar evolution (post main sequence, RGB, AGB, post-AGB)
  • Star formation
  • Planetary and cometary atmospheres
  • Very high resolution imaging and interferometry

Gaspare Lo Curto 		Scientific interests:
  • Isolated neutron stars
  • Planet formation
  • Stars in the solar neighborhood
  • High resolution spectroscopy, precise radial velocity measurements

Claudio Melo 		Scientific interests:
  • Extra-solar planets
  • Young nearby associations
  • Star formation
Personal home page

Luca Pasquini 		Scientific interests:
  • Precision Spectroscopy, direct measurement of the cosmic acceleration
  • Light Element Abundances (Li and Be): Primordial Nucleosynthesis,
    Galactic Enrichment, Stellar Mixing
  • Globular Clusters: light elements anti-correlations
  • Chemical Abundance of stars in the local group, in clusters and in the field
  • Exo-Planets, planets around evolved stars

Monika Petr-Gotzens 		Scientific interests:
  • Star formation
  • TTauri stars, Pre-main sequence binaries
  • Young stellar clusters

Suzanne Ramsay 		Scientific interests:
  • starf ormation in this and nearby galaxies
  • cirumstellar matter (disks, outflows)
  • near-infrared spectroscopy (particularly of H2)

Ralf Siebenmorgen 		Scientific interests:
  • Physics of interstellar dust
  • IR/mm continuum: imaging
  • Formation of stars/galaxies
Personal home page

Leonardo Testi 		Scientific interests:
  • High mass star formation
  • Young (proto-)stellar clusters
  • Young brown dwarfs
  • Circumstellar disks and their evolution

Mario van den Ancker 		Scientific interests:
  • Star Formation
  • Protoplanetary Disks
  • Infrared Spectroscopy
Personal home page

Fellows

Name Interests

Michaela Doellinger 		Scientific interests:
  • High resolution spectroscopy
  • Light elements abundances
  • Radial velocity variances in K giants

Ciriaco Goddi 		Scientific interests:
  • Low and high-mass star formation
  • Radio-interferometry and VLBI
  • Maser physics

Pamela Klaassen 		Scientific interests:
  • High mass star formation
  • Molecular gas kinematics
  • Outflow and infall from HII regions

Olja Panić 		Scientific interests:
  • Low- and intermediate-mass star formation
  • Protoplanetary discs
  • Prestellar cores
  • Sub-millimetre interferometry
  • Astrochemistry

Paula Teixeira 		Scientific interests:
  • Fragmentation of filamentary clouds and prestellar cores
  • Protostellar binaries
  • Protoplanetary disk evolution
  • Debris disks
  • Brown dwarves
Personal home page

Students

Name Interests

Sebastian Daemgen 		Scientific interests:
  • Disk evolution in multiple stellar systems
  • Transiting planets
  • High resolution imaging and NIR interferometry
  • Low mass to very low mass multiple stars

Luca Ricci 		Scientific interests:
  • Protoplanetary disks and their evolution
  • Star formation
  • Young binary stellar systems

Personal home page

Postdocs hosted at ESO

Name Interests

Szymon Gladysz 		Scientific interests:
  • Direct detection of exoplanets
  • Image processing
  • Extreme adaptive optics
Personal home page

ESO ALMA COFUND Fellows hosted in ARC nodes

Name Interests

Francesco Fontani 		ARC node: GRENOBLE

Scientific interests:
  • The formation of massive stars and stellar clusters

Anaëlle Maury 		ARC node: GARCHING

Scientific interests:
  • Earliest phases of star formation (prestellar cores, Class 0 and Class I protostars)
  • Interferometric and single-dish mm/submm observations of such objects
  • Formation of multiple proto-systems
  • Interplay of magnetic fields, turbulence and gravity during the earliest phases of star formation