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JOINT DAUT-ICTP-OATS-SISSA COLLOQUIUM
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Speaker:
Michel Mayor (Observatoire de Genève)
Title:
From Gaseous Giant Planets to Rocky Planets. Eleven Years of Exoplanet Discoveries
Date: Thursday, May 11th, 2006
Time: 12:00 noon
Venue: Villa Bazzoni
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Abstract:
In the last eleven years, more than 170 exoplanets have been
detected. These discoveries have revealed the impressive diversity
of exoplanet orbital properties. Several statistical
properties are already emerging and help constraining the formation
mechanisms of these systems.
The past eleven years have also witnessed a remarkable improvement of the
precision of radial velocity measurements with a gain of about a
factor 100. Planets with masses as small as a few earth-masses
have been detected. Is it possible to expect further significant
progresses of Doppler measurements? Such a possibility could be
of interest to permit radial velocity follow-up measurements
of planetary transit candidates expected from the COROT and KEPLER
space missions : the goal being to get a precise determination
of mass-radius relations from terrestrial planets to brown dwarfs.
A radial velocity precision at the level of 0.1 m/s does not seem
out of reach. With an observing strategy adapted to minimize the
influence of the stellar intrinsic variability (magnetic activity,
acoustic modes) we should be in position to explore statistical
properties of terrestrial planetary systems.
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