Josh Winn (Princeton) and Lily Zhao (Yale) both came in to Flatiron for a couple of days today to work with Megan Bedell (Flatiron), Didier Queloz (Cambridge), and me. So we had a bit of a themed Stars and Exoplanets Meeting today at Flatiron. Winn talked about various ways to measure stellar obliquities (that is, angles between stellar-rotation angular momentum vectors and planetary system angular-momentum vectors). He has some six ways to do it! He talked about statistical differences between vsini measurements for stars with and without transiting systems.
Zhao and Queloz talked about their respective big EPRV programs to find Earth analogs in radial-velocity data. Both projects need to get much more precise measurements, and observe fewer stars (yes fewer) for longer times. That's the direction the field is going, at least where it concerns discovery space. Queloz argued that these are going to be big projects that require patience and commitment, and that it is important for new projects to control facilities, not just to apply for observing time each semester! And that's what he has with the Terra Hunting Experiment, in which Bedell, Winn, and I are also partners.
Related to all that, Zhao talked about how to make an observing program adaptive (to increase efficiency) without making it hard to understand (for statistical inferences at the end). I'm very interested in this problem! And it relates to the Queloz point, because if a time allocation committee is involved every semester, any statistical inferences about what was discovered would have to model not just the exoplanet population but also the behavior of the various TACs!
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