This $110,000 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (CFDA 47.049) program will support a 3-year postdoctoral research and education program led by Sarah Blunt at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The project aims to investigate the formation processes of "cold giant" exoplanets located far from their host stars through a multi-pronged observational campaign. The research will refine the population-level eccentricity distributions of directly-imaged exoplanets and brown dwarfs and compare them to radial velocity-discovered giants at similar separations. This will help elucidate the dynamical evolution of cold giants over time. Blunt will also carry out a high-cadence radial velocity search for inner planetary companions in cold giant systems to leverage insights on modeling stellar activity. As an educational component, Blunt will continue developing and teaching the "Code/Astro" software development workshop for astronomers. No subawards are planned for this project, which is scheduled to run from September 1, 2024 to August 31, 2027.
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