<p><strong><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Special Planetary Seminar</span></span><br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gaspar Bakos<br>
</span></span></span></strong> <br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Transiting Exoplanets
with HATNet</span><br style="font-weight: bold;">
<br>
</p>
<p><strong><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tues April 10 </span>1:30 pm<br>
</strong><span style="font-weight: bold;">CfA. Phillips Auditorium.</span></p>
<p><strong>Abstract:</strong> The past decade revolutionized our view of
planetary systems via their detection around stars other than our Sun.
There is an increasing excitement thanks to the continuous flow of discoveries,
such as hot Jupiters orbiting close to their host star, resonant orbits
of multiple planets, or highly eccentric massive planets. Especially important
is the small ensemble (14) of planets that transit their central star,
since the transit (or occultation) reveals a wealth of information: the
planet's density, atmosphere, temperature, or perturbing companions. These
quantities, in turn, are crucial for constraining theories of planetary
formation and structure. Many interesting discoveries that will further
improve our knowledge are on their way. The HAT Network of small telescopes
is a major contributor to the field. I will briefly summarize its main
properties, as well as the discovery of a puffed up planet "HAT-P-1b".
I will highlight recent exciting results, such as a super-massive transiting
planet, and a handful of strong candidates that will significantly impact
the present census of transiting planets. Finally, I will hint on our
future plans of HAT-South, a network with round-the-clock coverage and
sensitivity to long period transits. </p>
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