What controls where life can form and evolve in the Universe?

The current paradigm of planet formation has been based on isolated systems; nearby stars were thought to have little impact on planet formation and evolution. However, last year it was discovered that external stellar environments have a significant impact on the formation and evolution of planetary systems (Winter et al., 2020, Nature, 586, 528). Winter et al.'s findings have fundamental implications on planetary evolution models and where we may expect to find life in the Universe. This PhD project aims to quantify the effect of environment on planet formation and evolution.

The Winter et al. paper focused on a small number of star and planet properties (mainly mass and orbital period), so a huge parameter space is yet to be explored with this method. The thesis will begin by investigating how other key parameters, such as stellar mass, affect planet formation as a function of environment. The next step will be to analyse in-hand ALMA and JWST observations of proto-stellar and proto-planetary systems in extreme environments to quantify how the birth environment affects a star's potential to host habitable planets. Finally, the thesis will explore the effect of stellar populations on planetary evolution models. By adding stellar populations to computational simulations of star and planet formation, the goal will be to determine the implications of external environment on planetary architecture.