Exoplanet Astrophysics

在我们银河系的数十亿个潜在的行星系统中，目前只有一颗行星已知拥有生命：地球。理解行星的形成和演化，比如地球，对于回答：我们在宇宙中是孤独的吗？科学界最大的悬而未决的问题之一。向加拿大研究教席计划提出的研究将通过仪器、观察和解释来解决这个问题。我们的目标是对系外行星的行星性质进行精确的整体测量，以了解系外行星演化的路径，并最终了解类地行星的形成。在过去的几十年里，我们对系外行星的知识已经从发现太阳系外的第一颗行星发展到详细的出现率和对主恒星、质量、半径、轨道和体积密度的精确描述。现在有确凿的证据表明，银河系中的行星比恒星还多，观测揭示了令人难以置信的多样性的基本系外行星属性。系外行星领域即将进入发现的黄金时代。新的仪器和设施，如詹姆斯·韦伯空间望远镜(JWST)上的NIRISS仪器，将对系外行星进行前所未有的红外测量，这将揭示对大气化学的新见解和演化路径的潜在指纹，例如轨道迁移或蒸发或碰撞等外力对大气的塑造。罗博士将在未来5年领导一项新的低成本空间任务，作为加拿大POET系外行星任务的PI，为NASA New Frontiers Pandora任务提供联合-I，并为拟议的加拿大旗舰Castor启用系外行星科学。这些飞行任务将提供独特的观测，以测量大气粒子散射、恒星活动及其对大气恢复的影响，提供长基线凌日计时以评估行星动力学，并提供精密光度测量以发现围绕超冷恒星的潜在类地行星。罗博士保证作为加拿大NIRISS GTO团队的成员和成功竞争JWST Go-Time的成员进入JWST。这项工作是他研究计划的直接延续，目的是获得和解释从地球到超级地球再到小型海王星体系的大样本行星的质量、半径、大气、入射通量、组成和演化的测量结果。

Among the billions of potential planetary systems in our galaxy, only one planet is currently known to host life: the Earth. Understanding the formation and evolution of planets, such as the Earth is fundamental towards answering, Are we alone in the Universe? one of the greatest unsolved questions in science. The research proposed to the Canada Research Chair program will address this question through instrumentation, observations, and interpretation. With a goal of precision bulk measurements of exoplanet planetary properties to understand the pathways of exoplanet evolution and ultimately understand how Earth-like planets form.Over the past few decades, our knowledge of exoplanets has blossomed from the discovery of the first planet beyond our solar system to detailed occurrence rates and precision characterization of host stars, mass, radius, orbit, and bulk density. There is now concrete evidence that there are more planets in the galaxy than stars and observations have revealed an incredible diversity of basic exoplanet properties. The field of exoplanet is about to enter a Golden era of discovery. New instruments and facilities such as the NIRISS instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will provide unprecedented infrared measurements of exoplanets that will reveal new insights into atmospheric chemistry and potential fingerprints of evolutionary pathways, such as orbital migration or the sculpting of atmosphere from external forces such as evaporation or collisions. Dr. Rowe will provide leadership over the next 5-years though the development of a new low-cost space mission as PI of the Canadian POET exoplanet mission, Co-I for NASA New Frontiers Pandora mission and enabling exoplanet science for the proposed Canadian flagship CASTOR. These missions will provide unique observations to measure atmospheric particle scattering, stellar activity and its impact on atmospheric retrieval, long-base line transit timing to assess planet dynamics and precision photometry to discover potential Earth-like planets around ultra-cool stars. Dr. Rowe has guaranteed access to JWST as member of the Canadian NIRISS GTO Team and from successful competition for JWST GO-time. This work is a direct continuation of his research program to obtain and interpret measurements of mass, radius, atmosphere, incident flux, composition, and evolution for a large sample of planets spanning the Earth to super-Earth to mini-Neptune regime.