Professor Didier P Queloz FRS

Biography

Didier Queloz is Professor of Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory and Geneva University. He is at the origin of the exoplanet revolution in astrophysics. Until recently, the Solar System has provided us with the only basis for our knowledge of planets and life in the universe. In 1995 Professor Queloz dramatically changed this view with the discovery he made with Michel Mayor of the first giant planet outside the solar system. This seminal discovery has spawned a real revolution in astronomy both in terms of new instrumentation and understanding of planet formation and evolution. Since then Prof Queloz has been involved in a successful series of developments of precise spectrographs, considerably improving the precision of the Doppler technique.

In 2007, in the emerging area of planetary transit detection, he established a successful international collaboration with the WASP team from the UK, providing the spectroscopic confirmation and precise photometry follow-up to confirm and characterize planetary candidates. He also took an active part in the Corot mission, pioneering planet transit detection from space. He conducted a part of the work that led to the first transit detection of a rocky planet (Corot-7b).

In 2012 he received, with Michel Mayor, the 2011 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award of Basic Sciences for developing new astronomical instruments and experimental techniques that led to the first observation of planets outside the Solar System.

In 2013 he became professor at Cambridge University, where he is leading a comprehensive research program with the goal of making further progress in our understanding of their formation, structure, and habitability of exoplanets in the Universe as well as to promote and share the excitement of this work with the public. With the help of colleagues at IoA and DAMTP he established the Cambridge Exoplanet Research Group

In 2019, Professor Queloz jointly won the Nobel Prize for Physics for the first discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star, along with Professor James Peebles and Professor Micle Mayor, and for their pioneering advances in physical cosmology. Read more

Curriculum Vitae

Research

Exoplanets, Stellar physics and Universal life

Publications

Key publications:

“A Jupiter-Mass Companion to a Solar-Type Star”, Mayor, M., & Queloz, D. 1995, Nature, 378, 355. (2300 citations).
“ELODIE: A spectrograph for accurate radial velocity measurements”, Baranne, A., Queloz, D., Mayor, et al., 1996, , Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series, 119, 373. (771 citations).
Queloz, D.; Mayor, M.; Weber, L, et al. 2000, “The CORALIE survey for southern extra-solar planets. I. A planet orbiting the star Gliese 86”, A&A354, 99 (250 citations)
Queloz, D., Eggenberger, A., Mayor, et al. 2000, “Detection of a spectroscopic transit by the planet orbiting the star HD209458”, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 359, L13. (259 citations).
The effect of red noise on planetary transit detection, Pont, F.; Zucker, S.; Queloz, D., 2006, MNRAS 373, 231 (373 citations).
“The CoRoT-7 planetary system: two orbiting super-Earths”, Queloz, D.; Bouchy, F.; Moutou, C. et al., 2009, A&A 506, 303 (279 citations)
The HARPS search for southern extra-solar planets. XIII. A planetary system with 3 super-Earths (4.2, 6.9, and 9.2 Me), Mayor, M.; Udry, S.; Lovis, C.; Pepe, F.; Queloz, D.; Benz, W.; Bertaux, J.-L.; Bouchy, F.; Mordasini, C.; Segransan, D., 2009, A&A 493,639 (232 citations).
“WASP-8b: a retrograde transiting planet in a multiple system”, Queloz, D, Anderson, D. R.; Collier Cameron, A. et al., 2010, A&A517L, 1 (93 citations).
“Spin-orbit angle measurements for six southern transiting planets. New insights into the dynamical origins of hot Jupiters”, Triaud, A. H. M. J.; Collier Cameron, A.; Queloz, D, et al. 2010, A&A...524A.25 (318 citations).
Search for brown-dwarf companions of stars, Sahlmann, J.; Ségransan, D.; Queloz, D.; Udry, S.; Santos, N. C.; Marmier, M.; Mayor, M.; Naef, D.;Pepe, F.; Zucker, S., 2011, A&A525,95. (109 citations)
“Planets and stellar activity: hide and seek in the CoRoT-7 system”, by Haywood, R. D.; Collier Cameron, A.; Queloz, D.et al., 2014, MNRAS, 443, 2517 (138 citations).
“Temperate Earth-sized planets transiting a nearby ultra-cool dwarf star”, Gillon, M. and Jehin, E., Lederer, S.M. and Delrez, L., de Wit, J., Burdanov, A., Van Grootel, V., Burgasser, A.J. Triaud, A.H.M.J., Demory, B.-O. Sahu, D.K., Bardalez Gagliuffi, D. Magain, P., Queloz, D., 2016, Nature 533, 221. (199 citations).