Dr. Scott Gaudi
CfA

University of Florida Astronomy Colloquium - Feb 1st, 2006

Taking the Inventory of Extrasolar Planets with Microlensing

Understanding planet formation requires a complete inventory of Galactic extrasolar planets, including gas giants, ice giants, terrestrial planets, and ejected planetary embryos. Microlensing is unique in that it is potentially sensitive to analogs of all the solar system planets except Mercury and Pluto, as well as to free floating planets, and so provides an excellent way of taking this inventory. I review the landscape of microlensing searches for extrasolar planets, beginning with an outline of the method itself, and continuing with a review of the results that have been obtained to date. Three planets have been detected with microlensing so far; I discuss what these detections have taught us about the frequency of terrestrial and giant planets. I then speculate on the expected returns of next-generation microlensing experiments both from the ground and from space, placing them in the context of future space-based planet-finding missions such as SIM PlanetQuest, Kepler, and TPF.