The Short Period Planets Group — S(u)PerP(i)G

Susie Superpig

The Short Period Planets Group S(u)PerP(i)G is an international collaboration to find, confirm, and study extrasolar (or exo-) planets orbiting very close to their host stars and in short periods (< 1 day). Already, many candidate planets have been found by our group and others using data from the Kepler and K2 missions.

From wispy gas giants on the verge of disruption to tiny rocky bodies already falling apart, short period exoplanets pose a severe challenge to theories of planet formation and evolution, but they dominate observational constraints on planetary composition, internal structure, meteorology, and more. So understanding these planets is crucial for understanding planets in general.

A full list of all of our ultra-short-period planet candidates can be found here.

Collaborators

Our collaboration consists of experts in exoplanetary transit analysis, radial velocity observations, and planetary dynamics.

  • Elisabeth Adams (Senior Research Scientist, PSI) — Transit analysis, high-spatial resolution imaging and analysis
  • Malia Barker (Graduate Student, Boise State) — Transit-timing analysis, Computation
  • Michael Endl (Research Scientist, McDonald Observatory @ UT Austin) — Radial velocity observation and analysis
  • Rachel Huchmala (Postdoc, Boise State) — Transit observations
  • Jeffery Morgenthaler (Senior Research Scientist, PSI) — Transit observations
  • Amanda Sickafoose (Senior Research Scientist, PSI) — Transit observations

Funded Grants

  • “Transit Archive Project”, NASA’s Exoplanets Research Program — PI: Elisabeth Adams; Total Budget: $193,305
  • “Finding the Next Doomed Worlds”, NASA’s Exoplanets Research Program — PI: Elisabeth Adams; Total Budget: $705,335
  • “Fossil Cores in the Kepler Data”, NASA’s Astrophysical Data Analysis Program (2013-2016) — PI: Brian Jackson; Total Budget: $271,200
  • “The Origins of Close-in Extrasolar Planets”, NASA’s Origins of Solar Systems (2013-2015) — PI: Kaloyan Penev; Total Budget: $104,000

Publications (*- student authors)

Press