Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The objectives of the proposed research program are to discover and characterize a large sample of exoplanets and to understand the origins of diversity in the basic properties of planets, such as mass, radius, density, and atmosphere. The objectives will be met though the development of Space Astronomy assets including Webb, TESS, NEOSSat, CASTOR, Pandora and POET.  The Canadian POET mission is a proposed micro-satellite for exoplanet astrophysics for Canadian Astronomers. POET will discover Earth-sized planets around ultra-cool stars and obtain ultra-precision transit photometry to characterize their atmospheres. The primary objective of my research is to determine precision measurements of populations of exoplanets. With the launch of Webb and development of Canadian-led facilities such as CASTOR and POET, this research proposal under my leadership, with place Canadian researchers at the forefront of exoplanet astrophysics for next decade and beyond. My team has secured access to Webb  through GTO and GO programs for observations of the prototype hot-jupiters Hat-P1-b and HD 80606b. The goal of these observations is to understand the physics of cloud formation and the impact of clouds on the observed exoplanet spectrum. HD 80606b is one of most eccentric exoplanets (e~0.93) known. As a result, the atmosphere is thermally shocked on the timescale of a few days during its 111-day period. Webb will enable a meteorological study of the upper atmosphere of the planet to monitor the formation and dissipation of clouds. Hat-P1-b, one of the best studied hot-jupiters, will provide a benchmark for emission and transmission studies as of the first exoplanet targets scheduled by Webb. The Canadian flagship CASTOR mission, a 1-meter, ultra-violet space telescope will provide precision UV transit photometry.  As exoplanet science lead, I will design and lead the CASTOR exoplanet program to characterize a sample of planets in a understudied domain obtain to understand particle size distributions through Mie scattering for a statistically significant sample of transiting exoplanets.  The result of my contributions will be a comprehensive survey of exoplanet atmospheres with continuous coverage from the UV to IR that will enable the detection of clouds, scattering particles, determination of chemical properties and abundances.  The proposed research program will place Canadian researchers at the forefront of exoplanet research. Understanding exoplanets will enable us to learn about the origins of our solar system and formation of the Earth and other potentially Earth-like planets as we begin to understand our place in the Universe.