ß C249 - Planetary Astrophysics

Let's boldly go!

Welcome to C249. I'm looking forward to exploring planetary systems together with you!

(Tentative) Syllabus

  • Class Meetings: M/W 10:00am-11:30am, Campbell 501B
  • Instructor: Courtney Dressing, Assistant Professor of Astronomy
  • Office Hours: W 11:30am – 12:30pm or by appointment in Campbell 605E
  • Discussion Board: Piazza

Description

This course introduces graduate students and advanced undergraduates to the dynamic field of planetary systems. We will cover the instruments and techniques used to detect and characterize planets, planet formation, interior structures of planets, planetary atmospheres, habitability, and biosignatures. As part of the course, students will discuss current journal articles and conduct original research. Course participants are encouraged (but not required) to attend the related astronomy talks listed in the syllabus.

Course Objectives

  • Students will become familiar with the methods used to detect, characterize, and model planetary systems and the current status of planetary research.
  • Students will learn how to critically assess journal articles, synthesize material from multiple sources, and conduct independent research projects.
  • Students will develop the technical skills required to analyze data, reproduce published results, and conduct their own investigations.

Format

Lecture, group discussion, student presentations, problem sets, & final project

Prequisites

Familiarity with physics & astronomy at the undergraduate level. This course is designed for first and second year graduate students, but is open to advanced undergraduates with a keen interest in planets.

Required Reading

Exoplanets edited by S. Seager (2010) ISBN 978-0-8165-2945-1 ($30; free electronic version also available via Berkeley library)

Selected journal articles (freely available via UC journal subscriptions and posted in our class ADS library at https://tinyurl.com/C249-fall2017)

Additional References

Astrophysics of Planet Formation by P. Armitage (2010) ISBN 978-1-107-65308-5 ($40)

Planetary Sciences by de Pater and Lissauer 2nd Ed (2015) ISBN-13: 978-1107091610 ($40-$100)

The Exoplanet Handbook by M. Perryman (2014) ISBN 0521765595 ($35)

Course Requirements & Grading Plan

  • Class Participation: 15%
  • Reading Questionnaires: 15%
  • Problem Sets: 40%
  • Final Presentation: 15%
  • Final Paper: 15%

Late work will be accepted only in extraordinary circumstances. Assignments should be submitted via email or in advance if students will be traveling on the due date.

Reading Questionnaires

A major component of this course is reading and discussing journal articles. In order to facilitate class discussion, all students will be required to complete brief reading questionnaires prior to the start of each discussion. You can download additional questionnaires here. (Note that questionnaires are required regardless of whether the student will be able to attend the discussion.)

Problem Sets

Course problem sets will be due roughly every two weeks and will usually require programming. Students are encouraged to begin working on assignments well before the deadline to ensure that any required software packages are compatible with their operating systems. I will aim to pick well-tested packages, but several of the programs used in the course are actively evolving.

Final Project

At the conclusion of the course, each student will give a conference-style oral presentation addressing an active area of research in exoplanets. In the spirit of astronomy conferences, students will also be required to write an abstract in advance of the final presentation and submit a final report at the end of the course.

Collaboration Policy

Students are welcome (and encouraged!) to discuss class topics and assignments with other astronomers, but students are required to write their own solutions, presentations, and papers. Please list collaborators when submitting class assignments.

Accommodations for Students with Disabilities

Please inform me as early as possible if you require particular accommodations so that I can make the necessary arrangements. If you have not already obtained a Letter of Accommodation, please visit the Disabled Students Program (http://dsp.berkeley.edu/students) to request a letter.

(Tentative) Course Schedule

    • Wednesday, August 23
      • In class: Course Intro, Exoplanet History, & Planetary Orbits
      • Reading: Exoplanets, “Introduction to Exoplanets” by Seager & Lissauer; Exoplanets, “Keplerian Orbits and Dynamics of Exoplanets” by Murray & Correia
    • Monday, August 28
      • Lecture: Detecting planets via astrometry
      • Journal Club: Struve 1952; Latham et al. 1989; Wolszczan & Frail 1992; Mayor & Queloz 1995
      • Reading: Exoplanets, “Astrometric Detection & Characterization of Exoplanets” by Quirrenbach
    • Wednesday, August 30
      • Lecture: Detecting planets via direct imaging
      • Journal Club: McArthur et al. 2010; Perryman et al. 2014; Benedict et al. 2017
      • Reading: Bowler 2016
    • Thursday, August 31:

      • Astronomy Colloquium: Ji Wang (4pm, 1 Le Conte; optional)

    • Monday, September 4

      • No class (Labor Day)

    • Wednesday, September 6
      • Lecture: Detecting planets via microlensing
      • Journal Club: Marois et al. 2008; Bailey et al. 2014; Wang et al. 2016
      • Reading: Gaudi 2012
    • Thursday, September 7

      • Astronomy Colloquium: Keith Hawkins (4pm, 1 Le Conte; optional)

    • Friday, September 8

      • Problem Set #1 due 5pm

    • Monday, September 11
      • Lecture: Detecting planets via radial velocities
      • Journal Club: Einstein 1936; Mao & Paczynski 1991; Yee et al. 2015
      • Reading: “Radial Velocity Techniques for Exoplanets” by Lovis & Fischer
      • Supplemental Reading (not discussed in class): Bond et al. 2004; Shvartzvald et al. 2017
    • Wednesday, September 13
      • Lecture: Detecting planets via transits
      • Journal Club: Fischer & Valenti 2005; Howard et al. 2010; Anglada-Escude et al. 2016
      • Reading: Exoplanets, “Transits and Occultations” by Winn
      • Supplemental Reading (not discussed in class): Mayor et al. 2011
    • Monday, September 18
      • Lecture: Dynamics of exoplanets
      • Journal Club: Mandel & Agol 2002; Charbonneau et al. 2000; Gillon et al. 2016
      • Reading: “Non-Keplerian Dynamics of Exoplanets” by Fabrycky
      • Supplemental Reading (not discussed in class): Seager & Mallen-Ornelas 2003; Charbonneau et al. 2009
    • Wednesday, September 20
      • Lecture: Planetary Interiors
      • Journal Club: Agol et al. 2005; Carter 2012; Hadden & Lithwick 2017
      • Reading: Exoplanets, “Terrestrial Planet Interiors” by Sotin, Jackson, & Seager; Exoplanets, “Giant Planet Interior Structure & Thermal Evolution” by Fortney, Baraffe, & Militzer
      • Supplemental Reading (not discussed in class): Holman & Murray 2005; Chatterjee et al. 2008; Deck & Agol 2015; MacDonald et al. 2016
    • Friday, September 22

      • Bay Area Exoplanets Meeting (NASA Ames; optional)

    • Monday, September 25
      • Lecture: Planet formation & disks (part 1)
      • Journal Club (pick 1 of your 2 assigned options): Seager et al. 2007; Owen & Wu 2013; Lopez & Fortney 2014; Rogers 2015
      • Reading: Exoplanets, “Protoplanetary & Debris Disks” by Roberge & Kamp
      • Supplemental Reading (not discussed in class): Goldreich & Soter 1966; Wolfgang & Lopez 2015; Chen & Kipping 2016
    • Monday, September 25

      • Problem Set #2 due 5pm

    • Wednesday, September 27
      • Lecture: Planet formation & disks (part 2)
      • Journal Club: Oberg et al. 2011; Andrews et al. 2013; Rosenfeld et al. 2013; MacGregor et al. 2017; Powell et al. 2017
      • Reading: Baruteau et al. 2016
      • Supplemental Reading (not discussed in class): Haisch, Lada, & Lada 2001; Montesinos et al. 2016
    • Thursday, September 28

      • Astronomy Colloquium: Bill Bottke (4pm, 1 Le Conte; optional)

    • Friday, September 29

      • Final Project Topic due 5pm

    • Monday, October 2
      • Lecture: Planet formation & disks (part 3)
      • Journal Club (pick 1): Goldreich & Ward 1973; Pollack et al. 1996; Kokubo & Ida 1998; Zsom et al. 2010; Lambrechts & Johansen 2012; Dawson et al. 2015; Lee & Chiang 2017
      • Reading: Baruteau et al. 2016
    • Wednesday, October 4
      • Lecture: Planet formation & disks (part 4)
      • Journal Club (half of class assigned to each paper): Batygin et al. 2016; Moriarty & Ballard 2016
      • Reading: Exoplanets, “Giant Planet Formation” by D'Angelo, Durisen, & Lissauer
      • Supplemental Reading (not discussed in class): Boss 1997; Ida & Lin 2004; Alibert et al. 2015; Levison et al. 2015
    • Friday, October 6:

      • Problem Set #3 due 5pm

    • Monday, October 9
      • Guest Lecture by Dr. Megan Ansdell
      • Journal Club: Williams & Cieza 2011
    • Wednesday, October 11
    • Thursday, October 12:

      • Astronomy Colloquium: Jonathan Williams (4pm, 1 Le Conte; optional)

    • Monday, October 16
      • Lecture: Planet demographics & occurrence rates
      • Journal Club (read one): Dressing & Charbonneau 2015; Fulton et al. 2017
      • Reading: Winn & Fabrycky 2015
      • Supplemental Reading (not discussed in class): Youdin 2011; Fressin et al. 20113; Burke et al. 2015; Mulders et al. 2015
    • Wednesday, October 18
      • Lecture: Planetary Atmospheres (part 1)
      • Journal Club: Inamdar & Schlichting 2016; Lopez & Rice 2016; Owen & Wu 2017
      • Reading: Seager & Deming 2010
      • Supplemental Reading (not discussed in class): Chiang & Laughlin 2013; Winn et al. 2017; Kley & Nelson 2012
    • Monday, October 23
      • Lecture: Planetary Atmospheres (part 2)
      • Journal Club: Seager & Sasselov 2000; Charbonneau et al. 2002; Knutson et al. 2007
      • Reading: Madhusudhan et al. 2016
      • Supplemental Reading (not discussed in class)Diamond-Lowe et al. 2014
    • Monday, October 23

      • Problem Set #4 due 5pm

    • Wednesday, October 25
      • Lecture: Planetary Atmospheres (part 3)
      • Journal Club: Morley et al. 2015; Sing et al. 2016
      • Reading: Madhusudhan et al. 2016
      • Supplemental Reading (not discussed in class) Knutson et al. 2008; Line et al. 2014; Kreidberg et al. 2014; Crossfield 2015
    • Friday, October 27:

      • Final Project Abstracts due 5pm

    • Monday, October 30
      • Lecture: Habitability & extremophiles
      • Journal Club: Kaltenegger et al. 2007; Zahnle & Catling 2017
      • Reading: Shields et al. 2016, Kaltenegger 2017
      • Supplemental Reading (not discussed in class) Ribas et al. 2005; Domagal-Goldman et al. 2014; Luger & Barnes 2015; Arney et al. 2016; Booth et al. 2017; Reinhard et al. 2017
    • Wednesday, November 1
      • No Lecture
      • The classroom will be open for any students who would like to work together on problem sets or final projects.
    • Friday, November 3:

      • Problem Set #5 due 5pm

    • Monday, November 6
      • Guest Lecture by Dr. Howard Isaacson
    • Wednesday, November 8
      • Guest Lecture by Lea Hirsch
    • Monday, November 13
      • Lecture: Remote detection of biosignatures
      • Journal Club: Rugheimer et al. 2015; Wolf 2017
      • Reading: Meadows et al. 2017
      • Supplemental Reading (not discussed in class): Kasting, Whitmire, & Reynolds; 1993; Yang et al. 2014; Kopparapu et al. 2016; Ribas et al. 2016; Turbet et al. 2016; Morley et al. 2017; Snellen et al. 2015; Brogi et al. 2016
    • Wednesday, November 15
    • Monday, November 20
      • Lecture: A Glimpse of the Future of Exoplanet Exploration (slides)
      • Journal Club: Rodler & Lopez-Morales 2014; Wright et al. 2016
      • Reading: Check out the websites for upcoming missions and ground-based observatories
      • Supplemental Reading (not discussed in class): Fujii et al. 2010; Robinson et al. 2014; Lovis et al. 2017; Luger et al. 2017
    • Wednesday, November 22

      • No class (Thanksgiving)

    • Monday, November 27

      • Final Presentations

    • Wednesday, November 29

      • Final Presentations

    • Friday, December 8

      • Problem Set #6 due 5pm

    • Friday, December 15

      • Final Reports due at 5pm

Slides

Most lectures will be chalk talks. Any supplemental slides shown in class will be posted here.

Assignments

Problem sets will be posted here after they are assigned.

Readings

All required readings are accessible free of charge via Berkeley's library subscriptions. Most lecture reading assignments are in the Exoplanets textbook edited by Sara Seager. If you have a Berkeley IP address, you can access the electronic version of the textbook here. Many of the chapters are also available on the arXiv.

I've created an ADS library containing links to the assigned journal articles. Please let me know if any links are missing or if you have trouble finding the requested papers.

Additional reading questionnaires are available here.

Final Project

A major component of the course is conducting an independent investigation of an exciting exoplanet topic.

This course handout describes the expectations for student projects and contains a list of possible projects. Students are welcome and encouraged to develop their own project ideas.

Here are the major deadlines for the project:

  • 9/29Topic Due
  • 10/27 Abstract Due
  • 11/27 Presentations:
    Aaron (10:10am)
    Romain (10:25am)
    Brandon (10:40am)
    Cee (10:55am)
    Steven (11:10am)
  • 11/29 Presentations:
    Ned (10:10am)
    Jon (10:25am)
    Alex (10:40am)
    Thomas (10:55am)
    Jayke (11:10am)
  • 12/15 Paper Due
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