[Baps] BAPS - Upcoming Seminar at Harvard

[Prof. Richard P. Binzel]

          Harvard-CfA Astrophysics Division Seminar

                Tuesday 22 March, 12:30 pm
                Pratt Conference Room (G04) 


        Resonant Rings: The Kuiper Belt and Beyond 
              Eugene Chiang (UC Berkeley) 

Circumstellar disks not only furnish the raw material from which planets form, but also record, via their dynamical structures, the history of events during the era of planet formation.  I will review the history encoded within the Kuiper belt. I will describe how the observed pattern of resonance occupation informs our understanding of planetary migration, highlighting the diagnostic power of the N:1 resonance.  While migration can explain most of the observed resonant architecture, it fails in the special case of the Trojan 1:1 resonance. I will formulate a theory for the origin of Neptune Trojans in which the resonance furnishes a testbed, in miniature, for ideas of planetary growth by accretion of small particles.  When appropriate, I will alight upon extra-solar examples of resonance, including pairs of extra-solar planets, debris disks surrounding main-sequence stars, and the rigid ring encircling the famously puzzling pre-main-sequence T Tauri star, KH 15D. 


Full schedule available at:  http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/tad/events/