Related papers: Transit Probabilities for Stars With Stellar Incli…
Many transiting planet host stars lack high resolution imaging and thus close stellar sources can be missed. Those unknown stars potentially bias the derivation of the planetary and stellar parameters from the transit light curve, no matter…
Transiting planets are generally close enough to their host stars that tides may govern their orbital and thermal evolution of these planets. We present calculations of the tidal evolution of recently discovered transiting planets and…
Most detected transiting planets have orbits which would fit within the one of Mercury, exposing them to intense stellar irradiation and interactions that significantly alter their properties. In contrast, colder planets with longer orbital…
Differential spectroscopy during exoplanet transits permits to reconstruct spectra of small stellar surface portions that successively become hidden behind the planet. The center-to-limb behavior of stellar line shapes, asymmetries and…
Wide-field surveys for transiting planets, such as the NASA Kepler and TESS missions, are usually conducted without knowing which stars have binary companions. Unresolved and unrecognized binaries give rise to systematic errors in planet…
Interstellar travel in the Milky Way is commonly thought to be a long and dangerous enterprise, but are all galaxies so hazardous? I introduce the concept of galactic traversability to address this question. Stellar populations are one…
Extrasolar planets and belts of debris orbiting post-main-sequence single stars may become unbound as the evolving star loses mass. In multiple star systems, the presence or co-evolution of the additional stars can significantly complicate…
We recommend an intensive effort to survey and understand the obliquity distribution of small close-in extrasolar planets over the coming decade. The orbital obliquities of exoplanets--i.e., the relative orientation between the planetary…
Kepler will monitor a sufficient number of stars that it is likely to detect single transits of planets with periods longer than the mission lifetime. We show that by combining the exquisite Kepler photometry of such transits with precise…
Observing the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect during a planetary transit allows the determination of the angle $\lambda$ between the sky projections of the star's spin axis and the planet's orbital axis. Such observations have revealed a large…
The discovery of planets around massive stars is important for understanding how planet formation and evolution is conditioned by different stellar environments. However, current planetary search surveys have failed to detect planets around…
We perform a detailed study of six transiting planetary systems with relatively bright stars close enough to affect observations of these systems. Light curves are analysed taking into account the contaminating light and its uncertainty. We…
The rotation rate of a star has important implications for the detectability, characterisation and stability of any planets that may be orbiting it. This chapter gives a brief overview of stellar rotation before describing the methods used…
The current orbital geometries of exoplanet systems offer a fossilized record of the systems' dynamical histories. A particularly rich set of dynamical mechanisms is available to exoplanets residing in multi-star systems, which may have…
The stable oscillations of pulsating stars can serve as accurate timepieces, which may be monitored for the influence of exoplanets. An external companion gravitationally tugs the host star, causing periodic changes in pulsation arrival…
We investigate the rate of false planetary transit detection due to blending with eclipsing binaries. Our approach is purely empirical and is based on the analysis of the artificially blended light curves of the eclipsing binary stars in…
Lightcurves have long been used to study stellar activity and have more recently become a major tool in the field of exoplanet research. We discuss the various ways in which stellar activity can influence transit lightcurves, and study the…
The two dominant features in the distribution of orbital parameters for close-in exoplanets are the prevalence of circular orbits for very short periods, and the observation that planets on closer orbits tend to be heavier. The first…
Exoplanet occurrence rates facilitate comparisons between observations of planets and theoretical models of planet formation. Despite their deductive power, exoplanet occurrence rates for half the stars in the sky are missing because…
Planets are observed to orbit the component star(s) of stellar binary systems on so-called circumprimary or circumsecondary orbits, as well as around the entire binary system on so-called circumbinary orbits. Depending on the orbital…