Dr. Catherine Espaillat will be visiting us Wednesday afternoon
through Friday morning of next week. She will be giving a talk on
some of her research on Thursday at 12pm in room 6501. Please see her
talk title and abstract below.
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Characterizing Planet-Forming Disks Around Young Stars
Theoretical simulations predict that a young planet will interact with
the accretion disk surrounding its host star, clearing the material
around itself and leaving behind an observational signature in the
form of a clearing in the disk. Circumstellar disks with large, inner
holes have been detected and are known as “transitional disks.” A few
years ago, Spitzer identified a new class of “pre-transitional disks”
which have gaps rather than holes – they have an inner disk, a gap,
and an outer disk. These gapped disks are the strongest evidence to
date for disk clearing by planets and serve as signposts to guide
young planet searches in the ALMA era.
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