Research Interests
Eric Agol is predominantly interested in observational and theoretical studies of extrasolar planets, as well as compact objects, and gravitational lensing.
The smallest diameter "habitable-zone" planet, 1.4 times Earth, was found by me, and confirmed by a large team of scientists using the Kepler spacecraft, Kepler-62f ( Borucki, Agol et al., 2013, Science) Astronomers (and astrobiologists) are excited about this find, and its possible implications for exo-biology.
Graduate students
- Ben Vega-Westhoff
- Ethan Kruse
- Jason Steffen (now a postdoctoral fellow at Fermilab and Northwestern/CIERA, hear him explain on NPR how to best board an airplane);
- Nicolas Cowan (now a CIERA fellow at Northwestern);
- Jason Dexter (physics) (now at UC Berkeley), and
- Praveen Kundurthy.
Postdoctoral Fellows:
- Ian Dobbs-Dixon
- Sarah Ballard (Sagan Fellow)
- Brian Lee (now in Florida)
- John Wisniewski (now at University of Oklahoma)
- Jeremiah Murphy (now at Princeton)
Recent discoveries:
Here is a description of the first multi-planet system orbiting two stars that we just found: Kepler-47
Here is a graphic depicting more than two dozen planets that I helped to confirm, led by my former PhD student, Jason Steffen:
We recently discovered two planets that orbit closest to one another of any planets found to date, Kepler-36:
Here is a recent news article about a secondary eclipse map of
exoplanet HD 189733b:
I proposed in 2011 that 'habitable' planets might be found orbiting white dwarf stars:
He and his collaborators have:
- First proposed with Heino Falcke and Fulvio Melia that radio VLBI could be used to see the shadow of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. See article in the New York Times and Science Magazine.
- Modelled black hole accretion disks with the goal of explaining the spectra and variability of active galaxies. Download model atmospheres here!
- Developed a technique for imaging quasars on very fine scales using gravitational lensing.
- Pointed out how to find isolated black holes and white dwarfs in binaries in our own galaxy using gravitational microlensing and X-ray surveys.
- Made multi-wavelength observations of the gravitational lens known as the 'Einstein Cross'.
- Made polarimetric and infrared measurements of a T-Tauri star which eclipses once every 48 days.
- Developed computer code for modeling transiting extrasolar planets.
- Proposed using timing of transits to search for low-mass planets.
- He has been probing weather on extrasolar planets by measuring the phases of extrasolar planets throughout their orbits using the Spitzer Space telescope. With graduate student Nick Cowan, he used this data to create the first crude 'map' of extrasolar planet HD 189733 B, as well as create an "alien map" of planet Earth using the EPOXI satellite looking back at Planet Earth, as described here.
- Here is a radio interview on KUOW. Look at Research to learn more.
Contact
| Office: | B370 Physics and Astronomy Building |
| 3910 15th Avenue NE | |
| Seattle, WA 98105 | |
| Phone: | (206) 543-7106 |
| FAX: | (206) 685-0403 |
| Email: | agol AT astro.washington.edu |
| Mail: | Astronomy Department |
| Box 351580 | |
| University of Washington | |
| Seattle, WA 98195 |