Searching for planets in binary star systems

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

My research focuses on exoplanet discovery using the radial velocity method, specifically around binary star systems. Binary systems will affect their surrounding protoplanetary disk providing an alternate planetary formation path than single star systems, thus revealing which may be more common. Only a few of these "circumbinary" planets have been discovered so far, with many more expected to exist. Finding these planets could reveal vital information on the formation and evolution of planetary systems. Which could in turn provide us with a better idea as to how our own Solar system formed. This research will utilise data collected by telescopes such as the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) a spectrograph located at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, and from the SOPHIE spectrograph, mounted on the 1.93m at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence, in France.