Luke Bouma (Caltech): "Evolution of Exoplanets and their Broader Environments"

Over the past three decades, exoplanet science has revealed planet archetypes with a wide range of sizes, compositions, and orbital characteristics. A major frontier in the study of these exoplanets is to measure their properties in order to understand how those properties result from the processes of star and planet formation. While the earliest formation stages are challenging to directly observe, a suite of space and ground-based telescopes is beginning to clarify the processes that occur shortly after the protoplanetary disk disperses. In this talk, I will discuss these advances, focusing on: (i) young transiting exoplanets that orbit close to their host stars, (ii) the dissolving stellar associations that harbor such exoplanets, and (iii) prospects for measuring precise ages for large numbers of field stars, including those with detected exoplanets. I will close by previewing the application of a new rotation-based age-dating framework to the stars and planets observed by the Kepler satellite.