6 May: Matthew Kenworthy

Speaker: Matthew Kenworthy (Leiden University)

Date: Wednesday 6 May 2026

Time: 15:00

Location: Physics 3.29 (Access Grid)

The diversity of giant exoring transits and the promise of Gaia DR4

In 2015, a complex eclipse that lasted 56 days was interpreted as the transit of a circumsecondary disk - complete with ring gaps - in front of its parent star, J1407. Subsequent searches through decade-long ground based photometric surveys (SuperWASP, ASASSN, ATLAS) have revealed several more complex eclipses, and the fluctuations in the light curves give clues as to the physical substructure in these disks. I’ll present several of our recent discoveries along with their interpretations, how they provide insight into planet and exomoon formation, and how Gaia DR4 and the Vera Rubin observatory will be able to detect hundreds of these systems in the near future.