报告题目：Exoplanetary Science in Australia: Detection, Characterisation, and Destruction

报 告 人：Rob Wittenmyer博士(澳大利亚新南威尔士大学)

Rob Wittenmyer is a Lecturer at the University of New South Wales.  He is the lead of the Pan-Pacific Planet Search, and has also been part of the Anglo-Australian Planet Search for 4 years.  This is his 3rd visit to Nanjing, and he is very interested in advising postgraduate students from China.

摘　  要：I give an update on three major exoplanetary science initiatives being pursued by Australian-based planet-search teams.  In addition to the long-running Anglo-Australian Planet Search, I describe the Pan-Pacific Planet Search, a radial-velocity survey of Southern hemisphere evolved, intermediate-mass stars using the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope.  We currently achieve velocity precisions of 3-6 m/s, and there are several planet candidates emerging as more data are obtained.  In collaboration with John Johnson's Lick and Keck survey of Northern subgiants, this all-sky survey of over 600 stars will significantly improve our knowledge of the frequency and properties of planets orbiting stars more massive than the Sun.

I then describe a plan for Minerva: an installation of four 0.7m telescopes feeding a high-resolution spectrograph, sited at Palomar Observatory. Minerva will give exoplanetary scientists the ability to pursue dedicated radial-velocity searches for planets orbiting the nearest bright stars.  In addition, a Southern hemisphere Minerva could be used in collaboration with Chinese astronomers to follow up on objects of interest from Antarctic telescopes such as AST-3.  I will describe the diverse science cases for this highly cost-effective facility.

Finally, I present results from our recent series of papers in which we have performed extensive suites of dynamical simulations to test the veracity of proposed multiple-planet systems.  We show that some systems are strongly constrained by protected low-order resonances, while others are wildly unstable on short timescales.  This work highlights the critical need to include dynamical stability analysis as an integral part of the discovery process for candidate multi-planet systems.

时　  间：2012年12月7日（星期五）下午3:00

地　  点：苏富特 三楼 会议室

非常欢迎大家参加!

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　  南京大学天文与空间科学学院