Planet formation constraints from exoplanet population synthesis and simulation based inference

Anna Sommerville-Thomas
This work introduces a statistical framework to obtain Bayesian constraints on planet formation parameters, which offers a probabilistic interpretation of uncertainties and degeneracies contained within planet formation models. The model likelihood, or the probability distribution of observations conditioned on a set of formation parameters, is intractable for planet formation theories due to the high degrees of complexity involved. Furthermore, traditional likelihood estimation techniques scale