Direct imaging of young exoplanets in disks
Artist's rendition of the PDS70 planetary system. Two accreting giant planets are seen nested in their natal protoplanetary disk.
Artist's rendition of colliding planetesimals in.a debris disk, and the giant plant responsible for triggering the impact.
Real images of the PDS70 system on the left, and MWC758 on the right. These images were acquired by the NIRC2 L-band vortex coronagraph on the Keck II telescope.
Circumstellar disk of dust and gas are signposts for giant planets. In young systems (typically 1Myr old), giant planets carve out gaps and trigger density waves creating large scale structures that can be seen in sub-mm images taken by, e.g. ALMA. In adolescent systems (1 Myr to 1 Gyr), second generation dust disks are generated by collisional cascades between parent planetesimals under the gravitational influence of giants planets. Our team is leading observing campaigns using ground-based and space-based observatories to image and characterize these young and adolescent giant planets. Our goal is to understand how they form and how they shape the fate of planetary systems.