Eric Agol – uwastrobiology

Bio

Eric Agol studies transits of extrasolar planets, for which he has created a widely used modeling code and helped originate the idea of detecting and characterizing planets using transit time variations.

He is a former member of the Kepler team, with which he led the discovery and characterization of Kepler’s first exoplanet small enough to plausibly have a rocky composition orbiting within the habitable zone (Kepler 62f) as well as a closely orbiting super-Earth and mini-Neptune (Kepler 36). He also helped to characterize two circumbinary planet systems, including the first two-planet system orbiting a binary star (Kepler 38 and 47).

He first postulated the possibility of long-lived habitable planets around white dwarf stars (if they could form or migrate inward, and retain volatiles). He is also interested in atmospheric modeling of hot jupiters, coronagraphic imaging, radial velocity surveys, and mapping of extrasolar planets (using their time-dependent variation). He has recently helped to characterize the Earth-sized transiting exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 system.

Current Students

Tyler Gordon

Past Students

Rodrigo Luger (Postdoctoral Fellow at Simons/Flatiron Center for Computational Astronomy)
Brett Morris (NCCR Planets Postdoc at Universitat Bern, Switzerland)
Diana Windemuth

News:

Selected Publications

Gordon T., Agol, E., Foreman-Macey, D. (2020). A Fast, 2D Gaussian Process Method Based on Celerite: Applications to Transiting Exoplanet Discovery and Characterization. Submitted to AAS Journals. https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.05799

Ducrot, E., Gillon, M., Delrez, L., Agol, E., Rimmer, P., Turbet, M., Günther, M. N., Demory, B.-O., Triaud, A. H. M. J., Bolmont, E., Burgasser, A., Carey, S. J., Ingalls, J. G., Jehin, E., Leconte, J., Lederer, S. M., Queloz, D., Raymond, S. N., Selsis, F., … de Wit, J. (2020). TRAPPIST-1: Global results of the Spitzer Exploration Science Program Red Worlds. Astronomy & Astrophysics, A112. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201937392

Weiss, L. M., Fabrycky, D. C., Agol, E., Mills, S. M., Howard, A. W., Isaacson, H., Petigura, E. A., Fulton, B., Hirsch, L., & Sinukoff, E. (2020). The Discovery of the Long-Period, Eccentric Planet Kepler-88 d and System Characterization with Radial Velocities and Photodynamical Analysis. The Astronomical Journal, 242. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ab88ca

Morris, B. M., Bobra, M. G., Agol, E., Lee, Y. J., & Hawley, S. L. (2020). The stellar variability noise floor for transiting exoplanet photometry with PLATO. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 5489–5498. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa618

Agol, E., Luger, R., & Foreman-Mackey, D. (2020). Analytic Planetary Transit Light Curves and Derivatives for Stars with Polynomial Limb Darkening. The Astronomical Journal, 123. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ab4fee

Windemuth, D., Agol, E., Carter, J., Ford, E. B., Haghighipour, N., Orosz, J. A., & Welsh, W. F. (2019). An automated method to detect transiting circumbinary planets. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1313–1324. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz2637

Kruse, E., Agol, E., Luger, R., & Foreman-Mackey, D. (2019). Detection of Hundreds of New Planet Candidates and Eclipsing Binaries in K2 Campaigns 0–8. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 11. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/ab346b

Freudenthal, J., von Essen, C., Ofir, A., Dreizler, S., Agol, E., Wedemeyer, S., Morris, B. M., Becker, A. C., Deeg, H. J., Hoyer, S., Mallonn, M., Poppenhaeger, K., Herrero, E., Ribas, I., Boumis, P., & Liakos, A. (2019). Kepler Object of Interest Network. Astronomy & Astrophysics, A108. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201935879

Orosz, J. A., Welsh, W. F., Haghighipour, N., Quarles, B., Short, D. R., Mills, S. M., Satyal, S., Torres, G., Agol, E., Fabrycky, D. C., Jontof-Hutter, D., Windmiller, G., Müller, T. W. A., Hinse, T. C., Cochran, W. D., Endl, M., Ford, E. B., Mazeh, T., & Lissauer, J. J. (2019). Discovery of a Third Transiting Planet in the Kepler-47 Circumbinary System. The Astronomical Journal, 174. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ab0ca0

Windemuth, D., Agol, E., Ali, A., & Kiefer, F. (2019). Modelling Kepler eclipsing binaries: homogeneous inference of orbital and stellar properties. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1644–1666. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz2137

Luger, R., Agol, E., Foreman-Mackey, D., Fleming, D. P., Lustig-Yaeger, J., & Deitrick, R. (2019). The Institute of Physics, find out more starry: Analytic Occultation Light Curves. The Astronomical Journal, 64. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aae8e5

Borucki, W., Thompson, S. E., Agol, E., & Hedges, C. (2018). Kepler-62f: Kepler’s first small planet in the habitable zone, but is it real? New Astronomy Reviews, 28–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newar.2019.03.002

Grimm, S. L., Demory, B.-O., Gillon, M., Dorn, C., Agol, E., Burdanov, A., Delrez, L., Sestovic, M., Triaud, A. H. M. J., Turbet, M., Bolmont, É., Caldas, A., de Wit, J., Jehin, E., Leconte, J., Raymond, S. N., Van Grootel, V., Burgasser, A. J., Carey, S., … Queloz, D. (2018). The nature of the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets. Astronomy & Astrophysics, A68. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201732233

Luger, R., Kruse, E., Foreman-Mackey, D., Agol, E., & Saunders, N. (2018). An Update to the EVEREST K2 Pipeline: Short Cadence, Saturated Stars, and Kepler-like Photometry Down to Kp = 15. The Astronomical Journal, 99. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aad230

Morris, B. M., Agol, E., Hebb, L., & Hawley, S. L. (2018). Robust Transiting Exoplanet Radii in the Presence of Starspots from Ingress and Egress Durations. The Astronomical Journal, 91. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aad3b7

Morris, B. M., Agol, E., Hebb, L., Hawley, S. L., Gillon, M., Ducrot, E., Delrez, L., Ingalls, J., & Demory, B.-O. (2018). Non-detection of Contamination by Stellar Activity in the Spitzer Transit Light Curves of TRAPPIST-1. The Astrophysical Journal, L32. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aad8aa

Morris, B. M., Agol, E., Davenport, J. R. A., & Hawley, S. L. (2018). Spotting stellar activity cycles in Gaia astrometry. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 5408–5416. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty568

Delrez, L., Gillon, M., Triaud, A. H. M. J., Demory, B.-O., de Wit, J., Ingalls, J. G., Agol, E., Bolmont, E., Burdanov, A., Burgasser, A. J., Carey, S. J., Jehin, E., Leconte, J., Lederer, S., Queloz, D., Selsis, F., & Van Grootel, V. (2018). Early 2017 observations of TRAPPIST-1 with Spitzer. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 3577–3597. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty051

Morris, B. M., Agol, E., Davenport, J. R. A., & Hawley, S. L. (2018). Possible Bright Starspots on TRAPPIST-1. The Astrophysical Journal, 39. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aab6a5

Agol, E., & Fabrycky, D. C. (2018). Transit-Timing and Duration Variations for the Discovery and Characterization of Exoplanets. In Handbook of Exoplanets (pp. 797–816). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55333-7_7

Luger, R., Lustig-Yaeger, J., & Agol, E. (2017). Planet–Planet Occultations in TRAPPIST-1 and Other Exoplanet Systems. The Astrophysical Journal, 94. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aa9c43

Luger, R., Sestovic, M., Kruse, E., Grimm, S. L., Demory, B.-O., Agol, E., Bolmont, E., Fabrycky, D., Fernandes, C. S., Van Grootel, V., Burgasser, A., Gillon, M., Ingalls, J. G., Jehin, E., Raymond, S. N., Selsis, F., Triaud, A. H. M. J., Barclay, T., Barentsen, G., … Queloz, D. (2017). A seven-planet resonant chain in TRAPPIST-1. Nature Astronomy. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-017-0129

Luger, R., Lustig-Yaeger, J., Fleming, D. P., Tilley, M. A., Agol, E., Meadows, V. S., Deitrick, R., & Barnes, R. (2017). The Pale Green Dot: A Method to Characterize Proxima Centauri b Using Exo-Aurorae. The Astrophysical Journal, 63. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aa6040

Gillon, M., Triaud, A. H. M. J., Demory, B.-O., Jehin, E., Agol, E., Deck, K. M., Lederer, S. M., de Wit, J., Burdanov, A., Ingalls, J. G., Bolmont, E., Leconte, J., Raymond, S. N., Selsis, F., Turbet, M., Barkaoui, K., Burgasser, A., Burleigh, M. R., Carey, S. J., … Queloz, D. (2017). Seven temperate terrestrial planets around the nearby ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. Nature, 456–460. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature21360

Luger, R., Agol, E., Kruse, E., Barnes, R., Becker, A., Foreman-Mackey, D., & Deming, D. (2016). EVEREST: PIXEL LEVEL DECORRELATION OFK2 LIGHT CURVES. The Astronomical Journal, 100. https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-6256/152/4/100

Shields, A. L., Barnes, R., Agol, E., Charnay, B., Bitz, C., & Meadows, V. S. (2016). The Effect of Orbital Configuration on the Possible Climates and Habitability of Kepler-62f. Astrobiology, 443–464. https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2015.1353

Agol, E., Jansen, T., Lacy, B., Robinson, T. D., & Meadows, V. (2015). THE CENTER OF LIGHT: SPECTROASTROMETRIC DETECTION OF EXOMOONS. The Astrophysical Journal, 5. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/812/1/5

Deck, K. M., & Agol, E. (2015). MEASUREMENT OF PLANET MASSES WITH TRANSIT TIMING VARIATIONS DUE TO SYNODIC “CHOPPING” EFFECTS. The Astrophysical Journal, 116. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/802/2/116

Schmitt, J. R., Agol, E., Deck, K. M., Rogers, L. A., Gazak, J. Z., Fischer, D. A., Wang, J., Holman, M. J., Jek, K. J., Margossian, C., Omohundro, M. R., Winarski, T., Brewer, J. M., Giguere, M. J., Lintott, C., Lynn, S., Parrish, M., Schawinski, K., Schwamb, M. E., … Smith, A. M. (2014). PLANET HUNTERS. VII. DISCOVERY OF A NEW LOW-MASS, LOW-DENSITY PLANET (PH3 C) ORBITING KEPLER-289 WITH MASS MEASUREMENTS OF TWO ADDITIONAL PLANETS (PH3 B AND D). The Astrophysical Journal, 167. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/795/2/167

Deck, K. M., Agol, E., Holman, M. J., & Nesvorný, D. (2014). TTVFast: AN EFFICIENT AND ACCURATE CODE FOR TRANSIT TIMING INVERSION PROBLEMS. The Astrophysical Journal, 132. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/787/2/132

Borucki, W. J., Agol, E., Fressin, F., Kaltenegger, L., Rowe, J., Isaacson, H., Fischer, D., Batalha, N., Lissauer, J. J., Marcy, G. W., Fabrycky, D., Desert, J.-M., Bryson, S. T., Barclay, T., Bastien, F., Boss, A., Brugamyer, E., Buchhave, L. A., Burke, C., … Winn, J. N. (2013). Kepler-62: A Five-Planet System with Planets of 1.4 and 1.6 Earth Radii in the Habitable Zone. Science, 587–590. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1234702

Eastman, J., Gaudi, B. S., & Agol, E. (2013). EXOFAST: A Fast Exoplanetary Fitting Suite in IDL. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 83–112. https://doi.org/10.1086/669497

Agol, E. (2011). TRANSIT SURVEYS FOR EARTHS IN THE HABITABLE ZONES OF WHITE DWARFS. The Astrophysical Journal, L31. https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/731/2/l31

Cowan, N. B., Agol, E., Meadows, V. S., Robinson, T., Livengood, T. A., Deming, D., Lisse, C. M., A’Hearn, M. F., Wellnitz, D. D., Seager, S., & Charbonneau, D. (2009). ALIEN MAPS OF AN OCEAN-BEARING WORLD. The Astrophysical Journal, 915–923. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/700/2/915

Agol, E., Steffen, J., Sari, R., & Clarkson, W. (2005). On detecting terrestrial planets with timing of giant planet transits. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 567–579. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.08922.x

Mandel, K., & Agol, E. (2002). Analytic Light Curves for Planetary Transit Searches. The Astrophysical Journal, L171–L175. https://doi.org/10.1086/345520

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