This week the Astro Seminar will be given by Ralph Pudritz (McMaster) who will tell us about:
The astonishing pace of planet discoveries has uncovered several remarkable planetary populations including hot Jupiters and SuperEarths at small orbital radii, and more massive Jovian planets at ~ 1 AU. The data on mass and orbital radii of these planets as an example, strongly constrain theories of planet formation in protoplanetary disks. A central idea that emerges from this is that planets were built as they migrated slowly through their natal disks. After reviewing some of the basic observations and their implications, I will present some of our own work that emphasizes the role of planet traps in controlling the growth and evolution of planet formation. In this context, I will also discuss our latest work on predicting for the composition of planets based on disk chemistry.
