Zaira M. Berdiñas

I’m interested in extrasolar planets orbiting cool stars. I use the radial velocity technique that requires data from high-resolution spectrographs (e.g. HARPS-ESO). Cool stars are benchmark objects to discover Earth-mass planets orbiting in temperate orbits. Besides detecting and characterising potentially habitable exoplanets, I’m interested in the stellar physics of the host stars. In particular, I search for the first observational confirmation of a seismic signal in M-dwarf stars. Stellar pulsations are common for most spectral types but they have not been detected in M dwarfs. Among the implications, their discovery will trigger the asteroseismology theory allowing a better knowledge of the star parameters and thus constraining the parameters of the posible hosted exoplanets. I’m also part of the CARMENES consortium, a high-resolution optical-NIR spectrograph settled at the CAHA observatory aimed at monitoring 300 M-dwarf stars of the northern hemisphere to discover new exo-worlds.