Architectures and Weather of Exoplanetary Systems

第一批围绕其他恒星的行星的直接图像给系外行星科学带来了新的重大推动力。 它们不仅为其他行星系统的结构提供了前所未有的视角，而且为直接描述系外行星大气层奠定了基础。 随着2014年大型地面望远镜的极端对比度成像技术，以及2018年詹姆斯韦伯太空望远镜的发射，系外行星的研究正在进入一个新的阶段。 我的研究处于有利地位，可以利用这些科学发展。我长期参与研究系外行星系统和褐矮星的特征：巨行星的更大质量的亲戚。我目前的工作目标是最近的系统与已知的拱星碎片盘：带的岩石和冰的材料类似于所产生的小行星和彗星碎片在太阳系。 我还在进行最大和最敏感的褐矮星云和风暴研究，以研究太阳系外世界的天气现象。 这些都是NASA资助的研究项目，由我在斯托尼布鲁克大学的团队成员进行，这是我以前的学术机构。 我最近进入西安大略大学太阳系外行星加拿大研究主席的职位，为在更广泛的目标下扩大和统一这些项目提供了机会。 我研究的首要目标是为我们太阳系的建筑和演变创造一个全面的背景，并解决它在居住方面的独特性问题。 我建议的具体主题是建立在我目前的项目之上的。 我计划：（1）直接对邻近恒星周围的太阳系外行星成像，并确定它们在与多普勒和凌日行星巡天探测的轨道重叠的大范围轨道间隔内的频率;（2）对星周碎片盘的尘埃和冰形态进行空间解析，以揭示碎片盘与嵌入行星的动力学相互作用;以及（3）研究褐矮星和系外行星大气中的云量和天气现象，以了解其大气动力学，并最终确定潜在可居住环境中大气现象的多样性。 这项研究充分利用了地面望远镜上正在使用的新的极端对比度成像能力：8米双子南望远镜上的双子行星成像仪和5米帕洛马黑尔望远镜上的PALM-3000自适应光学系统。 这将允许太阳系外行星的常规成像，星周环境的解析映射，以及对直接成像行星的精确监测，以辨别大气风暴造成的微小通量变化。 我的团队拥有这两个设施的罕见优势，确保了我们的研究计划更快的进展和更广泛的范围，涵盖了北方和南半球。 加上我正在通过安大略早期研究者奖寻求的支持，在未来五年内，我将培养两名博士后研究员，三名博士生，三名硕士生和十名本科生。 在该计划的过程中，这些学员将获得先进的技术，计算和分析技能，这些技能对于系外行星天文学的研究至关重要，但也为天文学或学术界以外的领域的专业实现打开了大门。

The first direct images of planets around other stars have imparted a major new thrust to exoplanetary science. Not only have they offered unprecedented views into the structure of other planetary systems, but they have set the stage for the direct characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres. With extreme-contrast imaging technology arriving on large ground-based telescopes in 2014, and with the James Webb Space Telescope launching in 2018, the study of exoplanets is entering a new phase. My research is well-positioned to take advantage of these science-enabling developments. I have had a long-standing involvement in the study of exoplanetary systems and the characterization of brown dwarfs: giant planets' more massive kin. My current work targets the nearest systems with known circumstellar debris disks: belts of rocky and icy material analogous to that produced by asteroid and comet debris in the Solar System. I am also conducting the largest and most sensitive study of clouds and storms in brown dwarfs to study weather phenomena on extrasolar worlds. These are NASA-funded research projects that are being carried out by various members of my team at Stony Brook University: my former academic institution. My recent move into the position of Canada Research Chair in Extrasolar Planets at the University of Western Ontario has opened an opportunity to expand and unify these projects under a broader aim. The overarching goal of my research is to create a comprehensive context for the architecture and evolution of our Solar System, and to so address the question of how unique it is in being inhabited. The concrete themes that I propose to pursue build on my current projects. I plan: (1) to directly image extrasolar planets around nearby stars and to establish their frequency over a wide range of orbital separations that overlaps with the orbits probed by Doppler and transit-planet surveys; (2) to spatially resolve the dust-and-ice morphology of circumstellar debris disks in order to reveal the dynamical interactions of the disks with embedded planets; and (3) to study the cloud cover and weather phenomena in brown dwarf and exoplanetary atmospheres in a drive to understand their atmospheric dynamics and to ultimately establish the diversity of atmospheric phenomena in potentially habitable environments. The research takes full advantage of new extreme-contrast imaging capabilities being commissioned on ground-based telescopes: the Gemini Planet Imager on the 8 m Gemini South telescope and the PALM-3000 adaptive optics system on the 5 m Palomar Hale telescope. These will allow the routine imaging of extrasolar planets, the resolved mapping of circumstellar environments, and the precise monitoring of directly imaged planets to discern the minute flux variations cased by atmospheric storms. My team has the rare advantage of access to both of these facilities, ensuring faster progress and a broader scope—covering both the northern and the southern hemispheres—for our research program. Together with support that I am seeking through an Ontario Early Researcher Award, over the coming five years I will train two postdoctoral fellows, three PhD students, three MSc students, and ten undergraduates. In the course of the program these trainees will acquire advanced technical, computational, and analytical skills that are essential for research in exoplanetary astronomy, but that also open doors for professional realization in fields well outside of astronomy or academia.