Xueqing Chen 陈雪晴

I am a 2nd year PhD student working with Beth Biller at University of Edinburgh. I previously obtained my master’s degree in physics at ETH Zurich. My PhD work is centered on direct imaging characterization of brown dwarfs and giant exoplanet analogs. I am interested in studying the weather of these exoworlds using time-resolved spectroscopic observations, both from the ground and using JWST.

ELT viewed from the VLT platform at ESO Paranal, Oct 2023

Weather map of the nearest brown dwarfs WISE 1049AB

I am applying the technique of Doppler imaging to produce global weather maps of the benchmark brown dwarf binary WISE 1049AB (aka Luhman 16 AB), using high resolution time-resolved spectra take by Gemini/IGRINS in H and K bands.

Check out the first multi-band weather maps of not just one, but two extrasolar worlds! Link to new paper: Global weather map reveals persistent top-of-atmosphere features on the nearest brown dwarfs

Monitoring weather on L/T transition brown dwarfs with JWST

I am working on reducing and analyzing the JWST NIRSpec + MIRI spectroscopic monitoring observations of WISE 1049AB (ID: GO 2965, PI: Beth Biller), aka Luhman 16 AB. This program aims to identify the source driving the variability observed on these two benchmark objects spanning the L/T transition by looking at the distinct variability behaviours at different wavelengths, which probes different pressure levels in their atmospheres.

Observability of Forming Planets and their Circumplanetary Disks with JWST & ELT

For my master thesis project I worked with Prof. Judit Szulagyi at ETH Zurich. I simulated JWST & ELT observations of circumplanetary disks using hydrodynamic simulation output and RADMC3D radiative transfer calculations.

Publication here: Chen & Szulagyi 2022

ELT/METIS synthetic images of systems with different planetary masses (10, 5, and 1 MJup and 1 MSat) projected to 100 pc.