Rogue Worlds 3

Free-floating, or “rogue”, planetary-mass objects have been discovered wandering through the Galaxy unbound to any star. The origins of these objects remain poorly understood, and likely involve a combination of many different processes relevant to star and planet formation.

Direct imaging surveys of young star-forming regions continue to find hundreds of high-mass rogue planets, though it remains an ongoing theoretical challenge to determine what fraction represent ejected planets as opposed to aborted stellar embryos. Meanwhile, upcoming space-based microlensing programs, such as the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, are poised to vastly increase our sample of free-floating planets at masses extending to Earth-mass and below, opening a new window into their origin and demographics.

Following the success of previous workshops, Rogue Worlds 3 is a 4-day workshop designed to bring together researchers at the forefront of different aspects of the study of free-floating planets. Key focal areas include:

– Microlensing: Ground- and space-based detections, demographics, and mass functions.
– Direct Imaging: Observational breakthroughs, characterization of young planetary-mass objects, and atmospheric modeling.
– Dynamics: Modeling planetary ejection mechanisms, stellar cluster dynamics, and the fate of outer planetary systems.
– Moons Orbiting Rogue Worlds: Theoretical constraints, formation mechanics, and potential detection channels for exomoons bound to free-floating hosts.