2009-11-13

streams, exoplanets

Lang and I found a significant bug in the code we were running this summer to brute-force identify stream-like substructures in the stellar distribution in the Milky Way. We fixed it, updated our results, and started to follow up the most promising stream (follow up statistically, not observationally). Our plan is to write an observing proposal to confirm it (or deny it) with radial velocity measurements.

I ate lunch with Yavin, during which we discussed how next to proceed on the exoplanets. Yavin has made something that finds the dominant planet incredibly fast by performing Fourier-based arithmetic operations on the data prior to any fitting. The question is: Can we use these methods to enormously speed up any more correct Bayesian analysis? We both have the intuition that we can. I promised to start literature searching this weekend to make sure we are not completely reinventing old wheels (I am sure we are to some extent).

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