Recent News:

• Press releases for the most recent Gemini-LIGHTS paper!
  University of Michigan
  NOIRLab
  AAS 240th Press Conference and YouTube Stream

• We will be at the 240th AAS Summer meeting (remotely)! Come listen to Dr. Evan Rich discuss the recent publication of the Gemini-LIGHTS survey results in the talk titled "Gemini-LIGHTS: a survey of Herbig Ae/Be and massive T-Tauri protoplanetary disks imaged with Gemini Planet Imager" in session 338 on Wednesday, June 15th with talks between 2:00-3:30 PM PDT.

• Gemini-LIGHTS Survey paper has been accepted to AJ and is now on arXiv! See the Publications tab for a quick summary of our results and the Survey Sample for images of our entire sample!

Project Summary

The project is built around a Gemini Large and Long Program (LLP) to observe ~30 Herbig Ae/Be pre/transitional protoplanetary disks. By investigating this sample of disks we will answer:

• How early does giant planet formation truly begin?

• Can we link the global disk properties from the SED shapes to characteristic disk structures that reveal the stages of planet formation?

• How can conventional planet formation theories explain the large “solar system”-size holes seen in some pre/transitional disks?

• How common are complex scattered light features are seen within 20-100 AU of some systems with optically-thick inner disk, and what causes them?