Current Research Project:

Fast optical transients in wide-field surveys: giant flares and extragalactic searches

M-Dwarfs are by far the most numerous and faintest stars, but are also some of the most magnetically active main sequence stellar bodies. This manifests in frequent, fast flare events, lasting from under a minute to only several hours. These cause a broad increase in flux across the entire spectrum, but notably in the UV and blue frequencies. These flares are apt candidates to study in All-Sky surveys, such as ATLAS, Pan-STARRS, and future LSST. The population of galactic M-Dwarfs should mean that flares in these surveys should be common, allowing larger photometric datasets to be built for statistical analysis

My project works with ATLAS data in conjunction with deeper Pan-STARRS data to build an analytical framework for M-Dwarf flare detection in such surveys, including energetics, frequency, volumetric rate etc, with the long term aim to cross ref with exoplanet transit programmes e.g. NGTS, to estimate the likely effects of such flares on the conditions of M-Dwarf planetary systems

Research interest

• Fast Transients
• Flare Star Dynamics
• High Energy Systems
• Exoplanet-Star interactions
• Exobiology
• ML implementation