Observation and modelling of accretion mechanisms in the planetary mass domain

It is well established that giant planets such as Jupiter and Saturn form within a disk of gas and dust surrounding young stars. However, the process by which these planets acquire their massive gaseous envelope through accretion of the surrounding material remains poorly understood.
This PhD project aims to characterize the physical processes governing accretion onto young giant planets, through both observation and modelling. The doctoral candidate will analyse data from the large ENTROPY survey — 200 hours of observations at the VLT with the UVES instrument — which has produced time series of emission line profiles from young accreting giant exoplanets and isolated planetary-mass analogues. The candidate will play a central role in the homogeneous analysis of these data and in the publication of the survey's reference results.
The candidate will also adapt a radiative transfer code to produce synthetic observables — line profiles and fluxes — which will be compared to the data in order to constrain the physical parameters of the accretion process: gas temperature and density, magnetic field strength and topology, in the planetary mass regime.
Finally, as part of an international collaboration, the candidate will explore the link between accretion and the circumplanetary environment, connecting the characterised emission lines to the properties of circumplanetary disks now accessible through observations with the James Webb Space Telescope.