EPS Colloquium – Richard Teague, MIT
Witnessing the Assembly of Planetary Systems
We have observed a stunning diversity in the properties of exoplanetary systems which questions our understanding of planet formation. Does this diversity arise from differences in initial conditions? Are there multiple modes of planet formation which preferentially build different types of planets? Or does this diversity stem from the evolution of the newly born planetary system as the natal protoplanetary disk dissipates? Over the last several years we have gained an incredible insight into how planetary systems form and evolve thanks to facilities such as ALMA which allow us to resolve — spatially and spectrally — these planetary nurseries. In this talk I will discuss how our view of the protoplanetary disk has shifted from a smooth, flat 2D disk, to a highly structured and vertically extended disk which hosts complex flows and dynamical features driven by embedded planets. I will provide examples of how these observations, coupled with state-of-the-art numerical simulations, are shining new light on the planet formation process, and how new facilities, such as JWST, are going to allow us to tackle new questions related to our origins
To be added to the EPS colloquium mailing list, please contact Caroline Carr at carolinecarr@fas.harvard.edu.
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Richard, a native of the UK, studied for his Astrophysics MPhys at the University of Edinburgh before moving to Heidelberg, Germany to study for a PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy with a thesis title “Tracing the earliest stages of planet formation through modeling and sub-mm observations”. After graduating, Richard moved to the University of Michigan for a postdoctoral position, followed by a stint at the CfA as a Submillimeter Array (SMA) Fellow. During this time his work focused on developing new techniques to detect young planets that are still in the process of forming, with these methodologies laying the groundwork for the award of a large observing program on the Atacama Large Millimeter Array to conduct the first campaign to find still-forming embedded exoplanets. Richard is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT.