Eric Ford, Univ. of Florida

Dynamics of Planetary Systems in the Kepler Era

For hundreds of years, theories of planet formation were fine tuned to explain the solar system. Since 1999, the Doppler technique has discovered dozens of multiple planet systems, providing new challenges and insights into planet formation, orbital migration and the excitation of orbital eccentricities. In 2009, NASA launched the Kepler mission to search for Earth-size planets in and near the habitable zone of their host stars. In 2011, the Kepler team announced over 1,000 transiting planet candidates, including 170 systems with multiple planet candidates. Kepler observations of these systems are allowing astronomers to characterize the orbital dynamics of exoplanetary systems in fine detail. In particular, precise measurements of orbital period and phase constrain the dynamical significance of orbital resonances. For systems near an orbital resonance, measurements of transit timing variations provide a new means for confirming transiting planets and detecting non-transiting planets in multiple planet systems, even around faint target stars. Transit timing variations have confirmed several planets based on early Kepler observations. Over the lifetime of an extended mission, Kepler is poised to measure the gravitational effects of mutual planetary perturbations in dozens of systems, providing precise (but complex) constraints on planetary masses and orbits. I will survey the systems with multiple transiting planet candidates identified by Kepler before discussing early efforts to interpret the orbital dynamics and formation of a few selected planetary systems.

Host:  Dong Lai