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SUMMARY:NOTE:TIME CHANGE: 3-4pm: Learning from transits: evolutions & comp
 ositions of giant exoplanets - Tristan Guillot (Observatoire de la Cote d'
 Azur\, Nice\, France)
DTSTART:20100614T140000Z
DTEND:20100614T150000Z
UID:TALK25056@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Laurène Jouve
DESCRIPTION:With a steadily growing number of known transiting planets and
  the\nrealisation that no less than 10\,000\,000 planets transit stars in 
 our\nGalaxy alone\, a lot is to be learned from the present discoveries an
 d\nmuch more is to be expected for the future. The vast majority of\ntrans
 iting planets known today are gaseous giant planets.\nIn principle\, the d
 etermination of their mass\, size\, orbital\nproperties and age\nthrough c
 ombined radial velocimetry\, photometric transit observations\nand spectro
 scopy allows a determination of their composition.\nHowever\, uncertaintie
 s abound: on the equations of state to be used\,\non the opacities in litt
 le known pressure-temperature regimes\, and on\nphysical processes themsel
 ves\, in particular heat dissipation due to\nstellar tides. Taken individu
 ally\, these uncertainties generally\nprevent from infering the planet's g
 lobal composition. For example\,\nsome planets are found to be larger than
  possible for a hydrogen-\nhelium planet of that age\, mass and irradiatio
 n level when calculated\nwith standard evolution models. However\, by usin
 g the same hypotheses\nfor all planets\, it is then possible to infer mode
 l-dependent global\nplanetary compositions and relate it to other observab
 les. It is thus\nfound that the "metallicity" of stars and that planets ar
 e correlated\,\ngiant planets orbiting close to very metal-rich stars bein
 g found to\npossess up to ~100 Earth masses in heavy elements. I will disc
 uss how\nfurther insight can be obtained from statistical models of the st
 ar\nand planet populations and their comparison to transiting surveys. I\n
 will finally present a few intringuing planets\, in connection to the\nCoR
 oT mission. In particular\, I will show that models of CoRoT-2 imply\nthat
  both the star and planet are very young\, and that the inflated\nplanetar
 y\nsize can only be explained through a dramatic recent event.
LOCATION:MR14\, DAMTP\, Pav. F
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