I am Giovanni M. Mirouh, a French-Italian astrophysicist.
I obtained my PhD. in 2016 from the University of Toulouse (France), before postdocs at the International School of Advanced Studies (SISSA, Italy) and the University of Surrey (UK). In 2021, I moved to Granada (Spain), working first at the University and then at IAA-CSIC.
I have now come back at the University as a tenure-track Emergía fellow (the talent attraction program of the Andalusian government).

My work focuses on developing tools and methods for the asteroseismology and evolution of main-sequence stars. The main hurdles are the presence of rapid rotation, activity and/or a binary companion. I work with 1D and 2D models and oscillation codes, and I have also worked on stellar population synthesis.
My expertise mostly covers rapidly-rotating δ Scuti stars in isolation, binary systems, or clusters within the PLATO space mission framework. But I also work on M dwarfs, to prepare the MOSAIC and ANDES spectrographs to be installed at ELT, and planet-harbouring stars.

My CV More about PLATO More about the ELT

Research lines

A gravito-inertial mode in Altair. Taken from
Rieutord et al. (2023).

Asteroseismology of rapid rotators

Most stars earlier than F5 harbour a rapid rotation. Centrifugal and Coriolis forces cause the stars to be oblate and present a surface temperature gradient, and modify oscillation geometries and frequencies drastically. I work at pushing forward our fundamental understanding of the impact of rotation on the stellar internal structure and evolution. δ Scuti pulsators (i.e. main-sequence variable stars of spectral types A0 to F5) are the perfect laboratory.

By expanding well-established techniques and developing new ones, I design analysis strategies to describe these rapid rotators. These include the use of 1D and 2D models, perturbative and complete oscillation calculations, machine learning for mode classification, visibilities and more ...

Mixing properties for
main-sequence stars. Taken from Mirouh et al. (2023).

Binary stars

About half of stars are in binary systems, which can help constrain stellar parameters or complexify the relevant physics through tides, mass transfer or even mergers. I wield this double-edged sword by modelling eclipsing binaries, benefitting from accurate parameters, and by applying accurate tidal prescriptions in evolution and stellar population codes.

But the added complexities of tidal interactions led me to build grids of models and compute tide coefficients and timescales to improve the evolution in the binary_c stellar population code.

Eccentricity-period
diagram of the Hyades and Praesepe twin clusters. Taken
from Mirouh et al. (2023).

Stellar clusters

Through the study of tides, I have shown that the circularization process is inefficient along the main-sequence evolution: using circularization to derive a proper cluster age is thus a questionable, albeit widespread, approach. Synchronization resulting from the competition of tides with wind and magnetic braking seems to be a better age proxy: simultaneous measurements of stellar rotation rates and orbital parameters in binaries would provide a more accurate way of deriving cluster ages.

With accurate models of pulsating stars we derive ages, that can be combined to derive a cluster age. I contributed to a systematic study of δ Scuti stars in some open clusters. Even when using 1D models, we found ages compatible with the literature for three clusters, along with the possibility for more than one population in Praesepe, demonstrating the efficiency of this technique that we now aim to apply to faster rotators and more clusters.

Artist’s impression of
a M dwarf star surrounded by planets. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

M-dwarf models and pulsations

M-type dwarfs are the most common stars of the Universe, they live forever and are the preferred laboratory for the search of Earth-like exoplanets. However, their fundamental parameters are ill-constrained as their magnetic activity, starspots, or unknown metallicity all lead to radius and/or colour discrepancies. Their activity also tends to screen granulation or oscillations that could bring needed insights on their physics.

My work consists in computing new model grids and associated isochrones obtained with the MESA stellar evolution code for a wide range of metallicities and mixing length parameters, as well as a variety of atmospheres. This allows me to understand the physics of these cold stars and interpret benchmark observations. These comparisons ultimately test the accuracy of the underlying physics such as the internal composition, deuterium and helium-3 burning, and rotation-age relations. My models will also define the asteroseismic potential of M dwarfs and guide the search for their elusive pulsations.

Recent publications

Gessey-Jones T., Sartorio N. S., Bevins H. T. J., Fialkov A., Handley W. J., de Lera Acedo E., Mirouh G. M., Izzard R.G. & Barkana, R., 2025 "Determination of the mass distribution of the first stars from the 21-cm signal", Nature Astronomy.
Rauer H. and 845 other authors including Mirouh G. M., 2025 "The PLATO mission", Experimental Astronomy, 59, 26.
Maldonado J., Mirouh G. M., Mendigutía I., Montesinos B., Gragera-Más J. L. & Villaver E., 2025 "Intermediate-mass stars and the origin of the gas-giant planet-metallicity correlation", A&A, 695, 27.
Barceló Forteza S., Pascual-Granado J., Suárez J. C., García Hernández A., Mirouh G. M. & Lares Martiz M., 2024 "Characterizing the features of the low-amplitude peaks in delta Scuti stars with TESS", MNRAS, 535, 2189.

My complete publication record can be found here or on ADS.

Outreach and teaching

In every institution where I worked, I taught at all levels (Bachelor, Master and Doctorate) for a total of 220 hours in French, Italian and English. This experience allowed me to create lectures from scratch, design reading lists, grade exams, and take part to evaluation committees. I thus received the habilitation to teach in French universities in 2017 (renewed in 2022).

I have also led outreach projects in France, Italy, the UK and Iran. Notably, I received funding for two outreach projects: “The Sensory Universe” and “The music of stars”. The former allows the general public, children, and visually impaired audiences to apprehend the Universe using their other senses, relying on 3D printings of Galaxies, sonification of stellar winds and interstellar medium chemistry. The latter relates stellar oscillations with classical music through music theory and a dedicated composition. I presented this talk to various local astronomical societies, at the Winchester planetarium (UK), and as an invited talk in Constantine (Algeria). Before those I organized a science conference for elementary school pupils (Toulouse, France) and visited schools to give astronomy talks (in Italy, France, and Benin).

I am always on the lookout for teaching and outreach opportunities, in French, English, Italian (and soon, Spanish), so do not hesitate to get in touch !