Investigating Exoplanets Within Stellar Clusters
Abstract
Recent surveys exploring nearby open clusters have yielded noticeable differences in the planetary population from that seen in the Field. This is surprising, as it is widely accepted that a majority of stars form within clustered environments before dispersing throughout the galaxy. Though dynamical arguments have been used to explain this discrepancy in the past, previous surveys' observational statistics and detection biases can also be used to argue that the open cluster planet population is indistinguishable from the Field.Our group aims to explore the role of stellar close encounters and interplanetary interactions in producing the observed exoplanet populations for both open cluster stars and Field stars. We employ a variety of different computational techniques to investigate these effects, ranging from traditional Monte Carlo scattering experiments to multi-scale n-body simulations. We are interested in: the effects of stellar binaries; Hot Jupiter migrations; long-period ice giants; and the habitability history of terrestrial planets.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #229
- Pub Date:
- January 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017AAS...22942512G