About IAPA
A Message from the Director
Over the past three decades, the discovery of planets around other stars has fundamentally changed our understanding of planet formation. Planets have been found around stars of different types, in and around binary star systems, and in the habitable zones of their host stars. These discoveries have shown that the formation and dynamical evolution of planetary systems are far more diverse than what the study of our own solar system had suggested. They have also made it possible, for the first time, to address the question of the habitability of planets outside the solar system quantitatively.
As successful as the current models of planet formation have been, they still suffer from an important shortcoming. The formation of planets involves processes that span many orders of magnitude in size and time, from the growth of micron-sized dust particles in a protoplanetary disk, to giant impacts among planetary embryos, to the long-term dynamical evolution of the final system. No single simulation can follow all these stages. As a result, each stage is often studied separately and with simplifying assumptions (such as perfect merging during collisions) that make the computations feasible, but limit the ability of the models to make predictions. In other words, to connect the results of planet formation models to the planets that are being detected, these stages need to be modeled together, and accurately.
Research at IAPA focuses on the formation of planets, the dynamical evolution of planetary systems, habitability, and the detection of habitable planets. An important component of our work is the application of machine learning. When trained on high-resolution simulations, machine learning models can reproduce the outcomes of those simulations at a small fraction of their computational cost. This allows us to include realistic physics in models of planet formation, and to compare their results directly with observations.
It is important to note that a problem of this scale cannot be addressed by one group alone. Over the years, I have had the privilege of working with colleagues around the world, as a member of the Kepler Circumbinary and Kepler Habitable Zone working groups, and as the founder of the TESS Circumbinary Planets Working Group. IAPA is built on the same model of collaboration. We are bringing together scientists with expertise in planet formation, celestial mechanics, observational astronomy and machine learning, and we are committed to training young researchers who can work in all of these areas.
I invite you to learn more about our research, and to contact us if you are interested in working with us.