A Pan-STARRS Search for Distant Planets

Event Date:
2025-03-31T16:00:00
2025-03-31T17:00:00
Event Location:
HENN 318
Speaker:
Matthew J. Holman, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
Related Upcoming Events:
Astronomy Colloquia
Intended Audience:
Everyone
Local Contact:

Allison Man (aman@phas.ubc.ca) and Brett Gladman (gladman@astro.ubc.ca)

All are welcome to this event!

Event Information:

Abstract: 

I present a search for distant planets in Pan-STARRS1 data. This search has been calibrated by injecting an isotropic control population of synthetic detections into Pan-STARRS1 source catalogs, providing a high-fidelity approximation to injecting synthetic sources at the image level. The search method is sensitive to a wide range of distances, as well as all rates and directions of motion. The search discovered and recovered 692 solar system objects, including 642 TNOs, 23 of which are dwarf planets. By raw number of detections, this is the third most productive Kuiper Belt survey to date, in spite of the fact that distances closer than 80 au were not explicitly searched.

Although the search did not find Planet Nine or any other planetary objects, to date, it shows that the remaining parameter space for Planet Nine is highly concentrated in the galactic plane.  

A catalog-based approach to characterizing searches will be increasingly important for surveys such as Rubin, Euclid, and Roman, for which injecting synthetic moving sources directly into the images will be even more challenging.

 

Bio:

Matthew Holman is an Astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and a Lecturer in the Harvard University Department of Astronomy. Holman received an S.B. degree in Mathematics in 1989 and a Ph.D. in Planetary Sciences in 1994, both from MIT. After postdoctoral positions at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, he joined the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in 1997 as a tenure-track civil servant and received tenure in 2001.

Holman is credited with the discovery of satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Holman, along with Jack Wisdom, developed an algorithm for the efficient and accurate numerical integration of the orbits in the solar system n-body problem. This is now the framework of nearly every solar system integration package available.

Holman, along with Norman Murray, received the 1999 Newcomb Cleveland Award, given annually by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for the outstanding refereed publication in Science.

 

Learn More:

Add to Calendar 2025-03-31T16:00:00 2025-03-31T17:00:00 A Pan-STARRS Search for Distant Planets Event Information: Abstract:  I present a search for distant planets in Pan-STARRS1 data. This search has been calibrated by injecting an isotropic control population of synthetic detections into Pan-STARRS1 source catalogs, providing a high-fidelity approximation to injecting synthetic sources at the image level. The search method is sensitive to a wide range of distances, as well as all rates and directions of motion. The search discovered and recovered 692 solar system objects, including 642 TNOs, 23 of which are dwarf planets. By raw number of detections, this is the third most productive Kuiper Belt survey to date, in spite of the fact that distances closer than 80 au were not explicitly searched. Although the search did not find Planet Nine or any other planetary objects, to date, it shows that the remaining parameter space for Planet Nine is highly concentrated in the galactic plane.   A catalog-based approach to characterizing searches will be increasingly important for surveys such as Rubin, Euclid, and Roman, for which injecting synthetic moving sources directly into the images will be even more challenging.   Bio: Matthew Holman is an Astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and a Lecturer in the Harvard University Department of Astronomy. Holman received an S.B. degree in Mathematics in 1989 and a Ph.D. in Planetary Sciences in 1994, both from MIT. After postdoctoral positions at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, he joined the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in 1997 as a tenure-track civil servant and received tenure in 2001. Holman is credited with the discovery of satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Holman, along with Jack Wisdom, developed an algorithm for the efficient and accurate numerical integration of the orbits in the solar system n-body problem. This is now the framework of nearly every solar system integration package available. Holman, along with Norman Murray, received the 1999 Newcomb Cleveland Award, given annually by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for the outstanding refereed publication in Science.   Learn More: Read his faculty wepage from the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard & Simthsonian here: Matthew Holman | Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian Go through his personal webpage here: Matthew Holman's Home Page Some of his discoveries: "Discovery of Three Irregular Neptunian Moons": Text of Neptunian Press Release "The Irregular Satellites of Saturn": THE SATURNIAN IRREGULARS HOME PAGE "The Uranian Irregulars home page": THE URANIAN IRREGULARS HOME PAGE View his wikipedia page: Matthew J. Holman - Wikipedia Event Location: HENN 318