16 April 2009

Speaker: Rosanne Di Stefano (CfA)

Title: Now You See It, Now You Don't: Microlensing, Mesolensing, Transits, and Planets in the Age of Wide-Field Monitoring

Abstract: The successful launch of Kepler adds continuous monitoring of a large field to a group of other wide-field initiatives, including the microlensing-inspired work of the OGLE and MOA teams. Pan-STARRS and LSST present the possibility of all-sky monitoring with a cadence of days. The science returns from this variety of ambitious programs will be far reaching. In this talk I will touch on several topics, including points of contact with X-ray surveys, but will focus on new opportunities for planet discovery. Within the next 15 years we will have discovered a large sample of planets in face-on as well as edge-on orbits, with semimajor axes extending from a tenth of an AU to a tenth of a parsec. We will have discovered planets and asteroids around stellar remnants. I will talk about how this work will shed light on the form and evolution of planetary architecture and advance the search for habitable planets

Video of the Presentation (Talks can be viewed with RealPlayer. Free download is available from www.real.com )