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Wednesday, May 09, 2018
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Cahill, Hameetman Auditorium

Astronomy Colloquium

Young Gas-Giant Planets and their Brown Dwarf Cousins: From 1 Square Arcsecond to 30,000 Square Degrees
Mike Liu, Univ of Hawaii,

The year 1995 was the annus mirabilis for substellar astronomy, with the discovery of both brown dwarfs and gas-giant exoplanets. In the 20+ years since, study of both classes of objects have flourished, with the discovery of thousands of these objects and a concomitant leap in characterizing their properties. Direct imaging has become a key method to study gas giants in their youth and has opened a new window to deepen our knowledge of both the exoplanet and brown dwarf populations.  I discuss how direct imaging studies have challenged our conceptions of
gas-giant formation and properties, as well as enriched our knowledge of substellar evolution and atmospheres.  I also show how our understanding of low-mass objects in the inner square arcsecond around bright stars is being advanced by wide-field surveys that mine the entire sky.  Finally, I present high-precision astrometry results that measure these objects' fundamental properties (luminosities, temperatures and masses) and thereby test the theoretical models common to all studies in the substellar regime.

For more information, please contact Althea E. Keith by phone at 626-395-4973 or by email at [email protected].