Standing on the shoulders of Kepler

Our understanding of the exoplanet population has been significantly improved largely thanks to the revolutionary Kepler mission. However, because Kepler only saw transiting planets above certain thresholds, many popular results are in fact subject to observational biases. In this talk, I will first address the limitations of Kepler and present the correct explanations of the data. The implications to theories of planet formation will also be discussed. Building on the success of Kepler, the field of exoplanet is undergoing active development. I will outline several research directions that can produce exciting science within the next decade.

    Zhu Wei

Ｗei Zhu is currently a senior research associate at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA) in the University of Toronto. He got his undergraduate degree from Peking University in 2013 and PhD degree from The Ohio State University in 2017. Since then, he has been working at CITA, first as a post-doctoral fellow and now as a senior research associate. His research interests include both theoretical and observational aspects of astrophysics, with a focus on exoplanets and gravitational microlensing.