Weather on Other Worlds: Results from Variability Monitoring of an Unbiased Sample of Brown Dwarfs with Spitzer
Stanimir Metchev
University of Western Ontario

The detection of global weather phenomena in irradiated extrasolar hot Jupiter planets has provided tremendous insights into their atmospheric structure. Non-irradiated substellar atmospheres probe weather in an entirely different regime, where global atmospheric flows result primarily from a combination of rapid rotation and internal convection - e.g., as in the atmosphere of Jupiter - rather than from external forcing. Isolated brown dwarfs are ideal targets for such investigations because they possess planet-like atmospheric dynamics, yet have greater intrinsic brightnesses and lack nearby bright stars to contaminate observations. I will present comprehensive results from the Spitzer Exploration Science program Weather on Other Worlds, which for the first time reveal the general cloud properties of the population of isolated substellar objects.

Date:	Jeudi, le 7 novembre 2013
Heure:	11:30
Lieu:	Université de Montréal
	Pavillon Roger-Gaudry, local D-460
Contact:	David Lafreniere