Special Astronomy/Astrophysics Seminar with ICE Fellow Adam Frank

Planets on "hot" orbits (close to their host star) will be exposed to high fluxes of stellar UV and X-ray radiation. The atmospheres of these planets will respond to the incident flux by driving strong mass loss from their upper regions. Such "planetary winds" can have significant effects on the long-term evolution of the planet, including, in the most severe cases, a transition from a Neptune-type world to a rocky planet. Adam Frank will present new results from 3-D MHD AMR simulations studying the mass loss process, which explicate new and important features in the dynamics of the winds. Adam will also present synthetic observations from the model and will discuss their relevance to existing and future exoplanet studies.

Wilder Hall, Room 102
Monday, February 13, 2017
4:00 pm – 5:00 pm