Diagnosing the SEEDS of Planet Formation

John Wisniewski, U. Washington

Circumstellar disks provide a useful astrophysical diagnostic of the
formation and early evolution of planets outside of our Solar System.
It is commonly believed that young protoplanetary disks serve as the
birthplace of planets, while older debris disks can provide insight
into the architecture of exoplanetary systems. In this talk, I will
discuss how one can use high contrast imaging techniques to spatially
resolve nearby circumstellar disk systems, and how this imagery can be
used to search for evidence of recently formed planetary bodies. I
will focus on the initial results and future prospects from the
Strategic Exploration of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru (SEEDS)
project, a 5-yr program to spatially resolve ~200 nearby circumstellar
disks and investigate ~300 nearby stars for a direct imaging exoplanet
survey.