Unsinkable Planets:

Telluric planets are now detectable both by radial velocity (high-accuracy Doppler surveys like HARPS) and by photometric transits (wide-field space missions CoRoT and Kepler). In this regime, stellar activity is the major obstacle to planet detection. Star-spots induce semi-periodic fluctuations in radial velocity as well as in photometry, with amplitudes and timescales that overlap with the planet signals. Developing tools to tackle this problem robustly is an imperative if we are to find "unsinkable" telluric planets in the next few years.

The aim of this workshop is to take stock of what we know of stellar activity as an integrated time signal, to estimate its impact on detection limits for transit, radial velocity and astrometry planet searches, and to discuss future developments: how to assign confidence levels to transit candidates in the presence of stellar activity (especially in the context of the CoRoT and Kepler missions), how to separate stellar activity from planetary orbits in radial velocity and astrometry near the instrumental detection limit.

The workshop is organised by Frederic Pont and Suzanne Aigrain, University of Exeter, School of Physics, Astrophysics Group. The program will be a mixture of invited and contributed talks with considerable time for discussion. The number of participants will be limited to approximately 30, so please register early (by emailing esp09_at_astro.ex.ac.uk) if you would like to come. If you would like to give a presentation, please provide a title and brief abstract in your email. The sessions will run from Wednesday morning to Friday lunchtime, to allow participants to return home on Friday night. For those who are interested, some kind of outdoor pursuit is foreseen for Friday afternoon, weather permitting.