Contributions > By speaker > Schlaufman Kevin

The astrometric detection of giant exoplanets with orbital periods in the range 1 yr < P_orb < 10 yr using Gaia data is one of the most promising opportunities in exoplanet science. Indeed, thousands of cool giant exoplanet systems are expected to be revealed as part of Gaia Data Release (DR) 4 in 2026. This population of cool giant exoplanets will be obscured by a much larger population of unresolved equal-mass stellar binaries that mimics the low-amplitude astrometric wobbles produced by cool giant exoplanets orbiting single stars. To this point, observationally expensive follow-up observations have been necessary to differentiate between these two possibilities. I'll outline a new approach to the differentiation of the cool giant exoplanet/equal-mass stellar binary scenarios that uses existing Gaia astrometry and archival multiwavelength photometry. This approach scales easily to the tens of thousands of candidates that will be produced as part of Gaia DR4 and will enable a maximally efficient follow-up program with the goal of increasing by an order of magnitude the number of known cool giant planets with 1 yr < P_orb < 10 yr.