Description:

In the past fifteen years, several new jovian exoplanets at wide separations have been revealed using ground based telescopes equipped with adaptive optics systems. These planets, with masses between ~2-14 MJup, remain a puzzle for many planet formation models. At the same time, they offer a powerful tool in the hunt for observational constraints of formation, as they can be characterized with both imaging and spectroscopy. I will describe our recent efforts to push beyond the discovery phase into the realm of detailed characterization of these planetary systems.  Using OSIRIS on the Keck I telescope, we have been targeting known directly imaged planetary systems for detailed mapping of their atmospheres at R~4000.  I will describe our findings, including the atmospheric abundance measurements for these planets, which can potentially be used as a diagnostic of formation. I will describe how this work on the ground is being leveraged to take maximal advantage of the capabilities of JWST NIRSpec, and new ground-based instrumentation efforts that will improve our ability to obtain spectra for both directly imaged and unresolved planets.

Quinn Konopacky, Associate Professor, University of California, San Diego

Host: Jason Wang