Architectures and Weather of Exoplanetary Systems

第一批围绕其他恒星的行星的直接图像为系外行星科学注入了新的动力。他们不仅对其他行星系统的结构提出了前所未有的看法，而且还为直接描述行星外大气的特征奠定了基础。随着2014年大型地面望远镜采用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，系外行星的研究进入了一个新阶段。**我的研究处于有利地位，可以利用这些使科学成为可能的发展。我长期参与了系外行星系统的研究和棕矮星的描述：巨型行星的更大的同类。我目前的工作针对的是最近的系统，这些系统具有已知的恒星周围碎片盘：类似于太阳系中小行星和彗星碎片产生的岩石和冰状物质带。我还在对棕矮星中的云和风暴进行最大规模和最敏感的研究，以研究太阳系外世界的天气现象。这些是NASA资助的研究项目，由我在石溪大学(Stony Brook University)的几名团队成员进行。石溪大学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教授的职位，这为扩大和统一这些项目提供了一个更广泛的目标的机会。我的研究的首要目标是为我们太阳系的架构和演化创造一个全面的背景，并因此解决它在居住方面有多独特的问题。我提议追求的具体主题建立在我目前的项目基础上。我计划：(1)直接成像附近恒星周围的太阳系外行星，并在与多普勒和凌日行星探测到的轨道重叠的大范围轨道间隔上建立它们的频率；(2)在空间上解决恒星周围碎片盘的尘冰形态，以揭示这些盘与嵌入行星的动力学相互作用；以及(3)研究棕矮星和系外行星大气中的云层和天气现象，以了解它们的大气动力学，并最终确定潜在宜居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正在委托使用的新的极端对比度成像能力：8米双子座南望远镜上的双子星成像器和5米Palomar Hale望远镜上的Palm-3000自适应光学系统。这将允许对太阳系外行星进行常规成像，对恒星周围环境进行分辨率绘制，并对直接成像的行星进行精确监测，以辨别大气风暴造成的微小通量变化。我的团队拥有难得的优势，可以同时使用这两个设施，确保我们的研究计划进展更快，范围更广--覆盖南北半球。**加上我正在通过安大略省早期研究人员奖寻求的支持，在未来五年里，我将培训两名博士后研究员、三名博士生、三名硕士学生和十名本科生。在该计划的过程中，这些受训人员将获得先进的技术、计算和分析技能，这些技能对于行星外天文学的研究是必不可少的，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.