Poster Abstracts

Name/Affiliation:  Marin M. Anderson (California Institute of Technology)

Title:  Searching for Extrasolar Planets with the Owens Valley LWA

Abstract:
We present initial results of a high-cadence full sky radio imaging survey of exoplanet transients using the Owens Valley Long Wavelength Array (LWA), a low frequency (20-80 MHz) 256-element dipole array. The LWA's full cross-correlation and all-sky field-of-view provides the sensitivity needed to detect extrasolar planets through their coherent radio emission. Magnetized planets in our solar system produce extremely bright, highly polarized, coherent radio emission at low frequencies attributed to electron cyclotron maser emission. The detection of similar emission from an extrasolar planet represents the most promising method for directly measuring their magnetic fields and true rotation rate.