Anne-Sophie Libert
Presentation
As an FNRS (Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research) Research Fellow, Anne-Sophie Libert received her PhD thesis in 2007 from UNamur for her research in applied mathematics.
After a postdoctoral stay at the University of Thessaloniki in 2008, she obtained a 4-year F.R.S.-FNRS Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at UNamur, during which she spent a one-year research stay at the University of Lille (Institut de Mécanique Céleste et de Calcul des Ephémérides, 2012).
She became an Assistant Professor in 2014 at the Department of Mathematics of UNamur, where she is now a Professor as well as the director of the Namur Institute for Complex Systems (naXys).
Her main research topic is the formation and evolution of extrasolar systems, with a focus on the dynamical aspects that play a crucial role in the understanding of extrasolar systems architecture and an interdisciplinary approach combining analytical and numerical methods.
Contact : Anne-Sophie Libert
Research
MIS project: Dynamical constraints on transit-detected extrasolar systems
To date, more than 600 multi-planet systems have been discovered, with very diverse orbital properties. In particular, the existence of compact systems of several super-Earth planets has been revealed, notably by the Kepler mission.
Many compact systems possess planets close to or in mean-motion resonances or resonant chains, which are typical signatures of planetary migration, although an excess of planet pairs is observed just outside the mean-motion resonances. The transit detection method provides an insight into the physical and orbital parameters of the detected systems, but suffers from large observational uncertainties, in particular on the planetary eccentricities and masses.
The DYNAMITE project aims to infer dynamical constraints on the parameters of the transit-detected extrasolar systems, thereby contributing to bridge the gap between observations and theoritical studies, and anticipating the numerous results from the upcoming space missions (in particular CHEOPS). To ensure a global vision of the research question, the dynamics of the transit-detected systems will be studied by three complementary approaches: the analytical study of the (near)-resonant dynamics of the Kepler systems, the formation of super-Earth systems with an emphasis on the potential destabilisation of compact resonant chains during the migration and at the dispersal of the gas disc, and the analysis of the long-term stability of transit-detected tightly packed systems.
The DYNAMITE project has the ambition of answering, even partially, to some primordial questions about planetary systems: possibility of evolution in the past and the future of the systems, long-term stability of some configurations, circumstances in favor of the capture in resonance and the regularity of the systems, since long-term stability and regularity are essential factors for the development of life.
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