Thursday, January 21, 3:30 p.m.
2015 McPherson Laboratory

Exploring the diversity of extrasolar planets with the HATNet project

Gaspar Bakos
Center for Astrophysics, Harvard University

Transiting extrasolar planets carry an enormous potential to learn about the astrophysics of such systems. We can measure the radii and masses of such "exoplanets", and can place constraints on their internal structure. Through their occultation, as they pass behind their central star, we can also determine their surface temperature. Further, we can measure the sky-projected angle between their orbital plane and the spin axis of the central star, or perform a chemical abundance analysis of their planetary atmospheres. 10 years ago much of this amazing science was not even thought of, let alone implemented and practiced by 10 cm-class telescopes. Much of the precious discoveries of the past decade, leading to the ~40 published transiting exoplanets, are the result of the persevering survey of a few transit groups, such as the XO, TrES, WASP and HATNet and a few others. In my talk, I will focus on HATNet, and will highlight the diversity of exoplanets through HATNet findings. I will also introduce the HAT-South survey, which is just entering operational phase, and through its global network of 3 stations, will provide an uninterrupted, 24-hour data stream. These unique data will hopefully lead to a large number of extraordinary discoveries, such as inflated hot Jupiters, transitional objects between planets and brown dwarfs, multiple transiting planets, hot Neptunes and super-Earths.