Kepler's Discoveries will Continue

A talk presented by Geert Barentsen at #KeplerSciCon in Glendale, California, on March 4th, 2019.

1. Kepler’s discoveries
 will continue. A talk by Geert Barentsen for #KeplerSciCon 2019. Photo by Paul Trienekens on unsplash.com.
2. Photo by Marc Schiele on unsplash.com
3. Currently, 1.6 publications per day use Kepler or K2 data. 2016: 1.2 per day 2013: 0.8 per day 2010: 0.2 per day
4. +60 US PhD theses
5. Will Kepler’s discoveries continue?
6. Is there any science left to do?
7. YES!
8. new data new ideas new tools
9. big & ambitious There has never been a better time to tackle Kepler projects.
10. The fast pace of data releases led to a focus on quick discoveries. Some projects awaited the full & final data products*.
 (* see poster by Jeff Coughlin) Kepler’s precision and baseline will not be rivaled for many years.
11. “Show me some examples!”
12. arXiv:1810.12554
13. (*none of these ideas are new!) Here are 7 examples*:
14. 1 A homogeneous catalog of K2 planets • Planet catalogs help prioritize follow-up and enable
 occurrence rate studies. • Many excellent teams have published partial catalogs. • Only ~30% of K2 planets are published. (Dotson+ 2019)
 K2 complements TESS by adding smaller & cooler planets. See talks by Hedges, Vanderburg, Becker, Hardegree-Ullman, Rodriguez, Ciardi, & others.
15. 2 Refining the occurrence rate of planets • Occurrence rates inform planet formation models
 and future missions. • Kepler’s DR25 planet products were published last year and have already been used by several excellent teams. • K2 observed a wider range of stellar ages, types, and populations — will this help refine occurrence rates? See talks by Dressing, Berger, Mulders, Morton, Sestovic, Mann, Herman, & others.
 See posters by Bryson, Coughlin, Estrela, Gupta, Zink, & others.
16. 3 Understanding circumbinary planets • A large fraction of stars occur in multiple systems.
 (e.g. Duchêne & Kraus 2013). • Only 11 circumbinary planets have been discovered by Kepler! (Fleming+ 2018) • Circumbinary planets transit at irregular periods and are diluted.
 Can dedicated searches reveal more? What is their frequency? See talks by Kraus, Matson, Hess, & others.
 See posters by Sudol, Socia, Gonzales, & others.
17. 4 Mining overlapping fields for TTVs • Transit Timing Variations (TTVs) can identify dynamically interesting systems and reveal planet masses. • Planet searches tend to look for periodic signals.
 Planets with extreme TTVs may be missed. • Opportunity to leverage the long baseline offered in areas where Kepler, K2, & TESS overlap. See talks by Weiss, Lissauer, Ragozzine, Zhu, & others.
 See posters by Berardo, Dalba, Fabrycky, Jontof-Hutter, Vissapragada, & others.
18. 5 Comparing Kepler & K2’s 29 star clusters • Star clusters provide laboratories for understanding stellar evolution and planet formation. • Kepler & K2 observed 29 clusters across all ages.
 (Cody et al. 2018) • Do asteroseismology, eclipsing binaries, rotation rates, and planet rates tell a consistent story across these clusters? See breakout sessions by Cody & Soderblom.
 See talks by Angus, Mann, Curtis, Gully-Santiago, Venuti, White, & others. See posters by Barna, Beatty, Carmichael, David, Dhara, Gosnell, Rampalli, Rebull, Soares, Stauffer, Thao, Torres, & others.
19. 6 Galactic Archaeology • Kepler constrains the ages of red giants using asteroseismology. • The Kepler field recently revealed a strong relationship between red giant age & composition. (Silva Aguirre+ 2018) • Will similar analyses across all K2 fields reveal new insights into the history of the Milky Way? See talks by Pinsonneault, Stello, Yu, Garcia, Huber, White, Deheuvels, Gaulme, Cantiello, & others.
20. 7 K2’s Supernova Experiment • K2 captured a statistical sample of supernovae and other transients. • In some cases, K2 captured a full light curve starting from before the explosion to many weeks thereafter. • What will we learn about supernova progenitors? See talks by Garnavich, Dimitriadis, Holoien, Shaya, Rest, & others.
21. But wait, there’s more! • Benchmark planet systems. • Disintegrating planets & dust clouds. • Stellar activity. • Asteroseismology. • Gyrochronology. • Microlensing. • CVs & AGN. • Solar System objects. See all other talks & posters!
22. arXiv:1810.12554
23. Share your thoughts!
24. big & ambitious There has never been a better time to tackle Kepler projects.
25. Photo by Marc Schiele on unsplash.com
26. Kepler’s discoveries
 will continue