Caroline Dorn - February 2, 2018

Characterizing the interiors of exoplanets

Characterizing exoplanet interiors is a highly degenerate problem. This is 
because data are limited and the number of interior parameters of interest are 
relatively large. We developed a generalized Bayesian inference scheme to 
rigorously analyse the range of possible interiors. Thereby we can quantify 
the merit of different available data types. This allows us to inform 
observations about the required data and their precision in order to determine 
certain interior scenarios. Finally, the strength of our method is the 
explicit use of data and prior information that enables us to make meaningful 
statements about exoplanet interiors.