Michel Mayor

Title

The Quest for Very Low Mass Planets

Abstract

In the last thirteen years, more than 250 exoplanets have been detected. These discoveries have revealed the impressive diversity of exoplanet orbital properties. The past thirteen years have also witnessed a remarkable improvement of the precision of radial velocity measurements. Numerous planets with masses as small as a few earth-masses have been detected. Several statistical properties are already emerging and help constraining the formation mechanisms of these systems. Is it possible to expect further significant progress of Doppler measurements? Such a possibility could be of interest to permit radial velocity follow-up measurements of planetary transit candidates expected from the KEPLER space mission: the goal being to get a precise determination of mass-radius relations from terrestrial planets to brown dwarfs.