Young Gas-Giant Planets and their Brown Dwarf Cousins: From 1 Arcsecond to 30,000 Square Degrees

The year 1995 was the annus mirabilis for substellar astronomy, with the discovery of both brown dwarfs and gas-giant exoplanets. In the 20 years since, study of both classes of objects have flourished, with the discovery of thousands of the objects and a concomitant leap in characterizing their properties. Direct imaging has recently become a key method to detect gas-giant planets and, surprisingly, has opened a new window to deepen our knowledge of both the exoplanet and brown dwarf populations. I discuss how the initial results from direct imaging have challenged our conceptions of gas-giant formation and properties, including the long-cherished analogy with higher mass brown dwarfs. I also discuss how our understanding of these low-mass substellar objects in the inner arcsecond around bright stars can be advanced by wide-field surveys that mine the entire sky.

Speaker: Michael Liu, Univ. of Hawaii