Related papers: Detection and Characterization of Planets in Binar…
The field of exoplanetary science has experienced a recent surge of new systems that is largely due to the precision photometry provided by the Kepler mission. The latest discoveries have included compact planetary systems in which the…
We have investigated i) the formation of gravitationally bounded pairs of gas-giant planets (which we call "binary planets") from capturing each other through planet-planet dynamical tide during their close encounters and ii) the following…
We have attempted to establish an observational evidence for presence of distant companions which may have acquired and/or absorbed the angular momentum during evolution of multiple systems thus facilitating or enabling formation of contact…
The search for habitable exoplanets and life beyond the Solar System is one of the most compelling scientific opportunities of our time. Nevertheless, the high cost of building facilities that can address this topic and the keen public…
As astronomers, we are living an exciting time for what concerns the search for other worlds. Recent discoveries have already deeply impacted our vision of planetary formation and architectures. Future bio-signature discoveries will…
All circumbinary planets currently detected are in orbits that are almost coplanar to the binary orbit. While misaligned circumbinary planets are more difficult to detect, observations of polar aligned circumbinary gas and debris disks…
Binary stars are dynamical systems formed by two stars that are physically bound by the gravitational force. Binary stars are privileged laboratories, allowing one to measure the fundamental properties of stars but also potentially changing…
This is a scientific strategy for the detection and characterization of extrasolar planets; that is, planets orbiting other stars. As such, it maps out over a 15-year horizon the techniques and capabilities required to detect and measure…
Exoplanet detection in the past decade by efforts including NASA's Kepler and TESS missions has discovered many worlds that differ substantially from planets in our own Solar system, including more than 400 exoplanets orbiting binary or…
The fundamental properties of detached eclipsing binary stars can be measured very accurately, which could make them important objects for constraining the treatment of convection in theoretical stellar models. However, only four or five…
Although several S-type and P-type planets in binary systems were discovered in past years, S-type planets have not yet been found in close binaries with an orbital separation not more than 5 au. Recent studies suggest that S-type planets…
The Kepler mission has discovered a large number of planetary systems. We analyze the implications of the discovered single/multi-exoplanet systems from Kepler's data. As done in previous works, we test a simple model in which the intrinsic…
Many planets are observed in stellar binary systems, and their frequency may be comparable to that of planetary systems around single stars. Binary stellar evolution in such systems influences the dynamical evolution of the resident…
We show that a space-based gravitational microlensing survey for terrestrial extra-solar planets is feasible in the near future, and could provide a nearly complete picture of the properties of planetary systems in our Galaxy. We present…
Though there are now many hundreds of confirmed exoplanets known, the binarity of exoplanet host stars is not well understood. This is particularly true of host stars which harbor a giant planet in a highly eccentric orbit since these are…
We propose and evaluate the feasibility of a new strategy to search for planets via microlensing observations. This new strategy is designed to detect planets in "wide" orbits, i.e., with orbital separation, a, greater than ~1.5 R_E.…
The present dynamical configuration of planets in binary star systems may not reflect their formation process since the binary orbit may have changed in the past after the planet formation process was completed. An observed binary system…
The Kepler mission and subsequent ground-based follow-up observations have revealed a number of exoplanet host stars with nearby stellar companions. This study presents speckle observations of 57 Kepler objects of interest (KOIs) that are…
Recent and upcoming stabilized spectrographs are pushing the frontier for Doppler spectroscopy to detect and characterize low-mass planets. Specifications for these instruments are so impressive that intrinsic stellar variability is…
We present high-resolution observations of a sample of 75 K2 targets from Campaigns 1-3 using speckle interferometry on the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope and adaptive optics (AO) imaging at the Keck II telescope. The…