April 6
New Tools for Debris Disk Imaging: Keck/NIRC2-Pol and GRaTer-JAX GPU Models
Speaker: Dr. Briley Lewis, UCSB
Abstract: While protoplanetary disks reveal the earliest stages of planet formation, debris disks---like our own solar system's Kuiper Belt---provide insight into planetary evolution, such as the stage where volatiles (e.g. water) are delivered to terrestrial planets. Polarimetry is a particularly powerful technique for debris disk observations; light scattered off a dusty circumstellar disk is polarized, while the host star's light is unpolarized, creating a natural separation we can take advantage of. In this talk, I will discuss two new tools we can use for debris disk studies--the new NIRC2 polarimetry mode on the Keck II Telescope in Hawai'i that will provide cutting-edge observations of these disks, and the new GRaTer-JAX software that takes advantage of GPU computation to model debris disks-- and what we expect them to add to our understanding of planet formation and evolution.
Host: Yoni Brande