Exoplanets: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Observations will present a comprehensive overview about the current status of exoplanet research and discuss plans for future developments.
Exoplanet research is shifting gears from discovery to exploitation mode: long-term surveys and large-scale satellite missions brought in a rich harvest of extrasolar planet discoveries, allowing statistical investigation of exoplanet samples as well as in-depth analysis of individual systems. In the light of current discoveries, new questions have been raised about their formation and evolutionary processes (low-mass, low-density planets, retrograde orbits, Neptune-mass rocky planets, etc.), which have triggered the development of new missions aiming at the characterization of smaller planets around brighter stars.
The Seminar brings together expertise in all relevant theoretical and observational areas and provide the broad overview necessary to understand the current situation in this field. It shall provide an environment in which the main areas of the field can be discussed at a level sufficient to understand ramifications for the entire subject, and it allows plenty of time for discussion between experts from different areas.