Abstract:
The Kepler space telescope observed a multitude of stars during its primary mission, where a fraction of those stars were discovered to be eclipsing binary stars. Additionally, some of these binary stars were confirmed to host planets orbiting with a semimajor axis that was a few times larger than the host binary designating them as circumbinary planets (CBPs). Dr. Quarles has recently investigated the minimum semimajor axis for a wide range of binary stars including the Kepler CBPs. He will summarize the results for general systems and provide the theoretical context that makes observing CBPs so exciting.
Additionally, he measured the proximity of a planet to the stability limit for the Kepler CBPs and concluded that most of the CBPs are far enough away from this limit so that additional planets on shorter period orbits could remain stable. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite is expected to uncover 100s of CBPs using a novel detection method (e.g., Kepler-1647b) that uses the unique geometry of CBP systems, where multiple transits can occur during a single conjunction, and increasing the statistics of CBPs will provide key clues to processes of planet formation.
Event Details
Date/Time:
-
Date:Thursday, March 8, 2018 - 3:00pm to 4:00pm
Location:
Boggs Viz Lab 1-90
For More Information Contact
Prof. Gongjie Li
