Michael Meyer (UMich): They Might be Giants: Planetary Mass Objects as Companions and in Isolation

Thursday 8 Oct 2026, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Stockholm

Å90102

Title: They Might be Giants: Planetary Mass Objects as Companions and in Isolation 
Speaker: Michael Meyer
Affiliation: University of Michigan 
Room: Å90102 
Time: 14:00-15:00

Abstract:
We will present a new demographic model for very low mass sub-stellar companions that interprets available data as a combination of a planetary population, as well as brown dwarf companion population.

We investigate whether the brown dwarf companion population is consistent with extrapolation of known multiple star properties into the brown dwarf regime. Combining these distributions as a function of host star mass provides insight into both star and planet formation processes.

We find that the planet mass function does not depend on orbital separation and that the orbital distribution of planets depends weakly on host star mass (as expected from ice-line considerations).

Finally, we compare our results to new probes of the sub-stellar IMF with JWST, finding evidence for an opacity limit to the fragmentation process relevant to forming brown dwarfs in isolation as well as companions to stars.