Special Physics Seminar

A new paradigm for transiting exoplanets

Timothy Morton

Princeton University

The Kepler mission has revolutionized our knowledge of exoplanets, but doing so has required a major paradigm shift in how we think about transiting exoplanet candidates. While only a few years ago, radial velocity confirmation was essentially required to announce a planet discovery, last spring NASA announced the validation of over 1200 Kepler planets at once, most of which had little (if any) follow-up observations. I will review the stages of this paradigm shift as well as discuss some details of the analysis behind the recent planet bonanza. I will also discuss some of the groundbreaking results in exoplanet demographics that have been enabled by this new paradigm, as well as how this new paradigm will be essential to interpreting the results of future surveys such as TESS and PLATO.