Exoplanets

This research area focuses on the detection and characterisation of planets around other stars than the Sun, or exoplanets. This is one of the youngest, but also the most rapidly growing areas in Astrophysics. Exoplanet science forms is a central motivation for many of the major astronomical facilities of the next decade, from the largest ever ground-based telescopes to ground-braking satellites.

There are two main strands of exoplanet research within Oxford Astrophysics. Prof Niranjan Thatte's group develops new high-contrast, high spatial resolution instruments for the world's largest telescopes, such as the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). These instruments will enable astronomers to directly image exoplanets around bright, nearby stars, and to take spectra of these planets in order to study their atmospheres. Dr Suzanne Aigrain's group focusses on transiting planets, which pass in front of their parent star once per orbit. Her group is involved in current and future surveys for new transiting planets, including habitable planets, as part of the CoRoT and PLATO projects, and also exploits the transit geometry to measure exoplanet spectra using e.g. the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). We are also involved in searching for and characteriseing low mass brown dwarfs and companions to compact objects (Prof Philip Podsiadlowski, Dr Fraser Clarke).

Exoplanet research is intrinsically interdisciplinary, and our research fits within the wider context of the Oxford Exoplanet research group, which brings together researchers from various departments in Oxford University and nearby institutions (such as the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory) with an interest in exoplanets. For example, we are working with colleagues Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics sub-department to model exoplanet spectra using tools originally developed for the study of solar system planets.