The Demographics of Exoplanets

Thu, October 15, 2015

Measurements of the demographics of exoplanets over a range of planet and host star properties provide fundamental empirical constraints on theories of planet formation and evolution.  I will discuss various efforts to measure and synthesize exoplanet demographics over broad regions of parameter space, and show results from combining microlensing, radial velocity, and direct imaging surveys to constrain the distribution of planets over more than four orders of magnitude in planet mass and five orders magnitude in period.  Finally, I motivate a microlensing survey with WFIRST, which when combined with the results from Kepler, will yield a nearly complete picture of the demographics of planetary systems throughout the Galaxy.