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Astronomy Colloquium

Wednesday, December 7, 2011
4:00pm to 5:00pm
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Cahill, Hameetman Auditorium
The Demographics of Exoplanets with Gravitational Microlensing
Scott Gaudi, Ohio State University,
I review the landscape of microlensing searches for exoplanets, beginning with an outline of the method itself, and continuing with a review of the results that have been obtained to date. Thirteen planets have been detected with microlensing; I discuss what these detections have taught us about the frequency of cold terrestrial planets, giant planets, and solar system analogs. I then speculate on the expected returns of next-generation microlensing experiments both from the ground and from space. When combined with the results from other complementary surveys such as Kepler, next generation microlensing surveys will yield a complete picture of the demographics of planetary systems throughout the Galaxy.
For more information, please contact Gina Armas by phone at 4671 or by email at gina@its.caltech.edu or visit http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~gma/colloquia.html.