DR. ADAM BURROWS
University of Arizona

GIANT PLANETS AND BROWN DWARFS: NEW THEORY FOR NEW WORLDS

Straddling the realms of the Planets and the Stars lies a class of objects that spans two orders of magnitude in mass, more than an order of magnitude in effective temperature, and four orders of magnitude in age that closes the gap in the galactic census that has yawned open for a century. Extrasolar giant planets (EGPs) and brown dwarfs are tied by the exoticness of their atmospheres, the uniqueness of their spectra, and our embryonic understanding of their role among the stars. New spectral subtypes (the Ls and the Ts) have been identified and the first transit of a planet with an atmosphere in over a century has been observed. I will discuss current efforts to understand EGP and brown dwarf evolution, the L and T dwarf sequence, atmospheric compositions, and planetary transits. In addition, I will present new theoretical spectra for irradiated EGPs and discuss campaigns for their direct detection.