Séminaires

The Perkins INfrared Exosatellite Survey (PINES): Survey Overview and Transit Candidates
Patrick Tamburo (Boston University)

Salle de réunion AGO (local -1/14), Institut d'Astrophysique et de Géophysique
Bâtiment B5c, Quartier Agora, Allée du 6 Août, 19C, B-4000 Liège 1 (Sart-Tilman)

The Perkins INfrared Exosatellite Survey (PINES) is a search for transiting planets and moons around a sample of almost 400 L and T dwarfs, objects that occupy a largely unexplored region of exoplanet parameter space. The survey is performed at near-infrared wavelengths (J- and H-bands) with Boston University's 1.8-m Perkins Telescope Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and the photometric performance permits the detection of 2.5-Earth-radius planets and larger around our median brightness targets. In this talk, I will provide an overview of the PINES survey, describing our facility, target sample, observing strategy, and photometric performance. I will also describe a detection algorithm that we developed to search for single transit candidates in sparse PINES data. Finally, I will discuss the two candidates that this algorithm has identified in our data so far, one of which is feasibly due to a transiting companion. I will detail our follow-up efforts on this candidate and potential implications for L and T dwarf planet occurrence rates if the candidate can be confirmed.

TBA
Manu Stalport (Université de Genève)

Salle de réunion AGO (local -1/14), Institut d'Astrophysique et de Géophysique
Bâtiment B5c, Quartier Agora, Allée du 6 Août, 19C, B-4000 Liège 1 (Sart-Tilman)

TBA
Evgeny SKVORTSOV (UMONS)

Salle de réunion AGO (local -1/14), Institut d'Astrophysique et de Géophysique
Bâtiment B5c, Quartier Agora, Allée du 6 Août, 19C, B-4000 Liège 1 (Sart-Tilman)

Multi-step phase transitions and gravitational waves in the inert doublet model
Nico Benincasa (National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics, Tallinn, Estonia)

Salle de réunion AGO (local -1/14), Institut d'Astrophysique et de Géophysique
Bâtiment B5c, Quartier Agora, Allée du 6 Août, 19C, B-4000 Liège 1 (Sart-Tilman)

The inert doublet model is a well-motivated extension of the Standard Model that contains a dark matter candidate and modifies the dynamics of the electroweak symmetry breaking. In order to detail its phenomenology, we perform a comprehensive study of cosmic phase transitions and gravitational wave signals implied by the framework, accounting for the latest results of collider experiments. We require the neutral inert scalar to constitute, at least, a subdominant part of the observed dark matter abundance. While most of the phase transitions proceed through a single step, we identify regions of the parameter space where the electroweak vacuum is reached after multiple phase transitions. The resulting gravitational wave spectrum is generally dominated by single-step transitions and, in part of the parameter space, falls within the reach of near-future gravitational wave detectors such as LISA or BBO. We find that direct detection experiments efficiently probe the part of parameter space associated with multi-step phase transitions, which remain unconstrained only in the Higgs resonance region testable with future monojet searches.