Alen Kuriakose, BS (Honours) in Physics, Class of 2023

Supervisor: Professor Pankaj Joshi, School of Arts and Sciences

Thesis Brief

The concept of habitable zones was first proposed by Huang (1959). From the time of its introduction, the focus was primarily on electromagnetically (radiatively) induced effects. The effects of gravitational radiation on the formation and evolution of these zones were never considered until recently. A very basic model was given by Lima et al. (2020). The work done here extends this by adding the effects of eccentricity to the model. Finally, a primary model based on the inclusion of greenhouse effects is also given and can serve as a starting point for a detailed numerical simulation study in the future.