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As a planet transits the face of a star, it accelerates along the line-of-sight. The changing delay in the propagation of photons produces an apparent deceleration of the planet across the sky throughout the transit. This persistent…
The masses and radii of extrasolar planets are key observables for understanding their interior, formation and evolution. While transit photometry and Doppler spectroscopy are used to measure the radii and masses respectively of planets…
Precise exoplanet characterization requires precise classification of exoplanet host stars. The masses of host stars are commonly estimated by comparing their spectra to those predicted by stellar evolution models. However,…
Astrometric measurements of stellar systems are becoming significantly more precise and common, with many ground and space-based instruments and missions approaching 1 microarcsecond precision. We examine the multi-wavelength astrometric…
The mass of a star is the most fundamental parameter for its structure, evolution, and final fate. It is particularly important for any kind of stellar archaeology and characterization of exoplanets. There exists a variety of methods in…
Adding an independent estimate of the mean stellar density, $\rho_{\star}$, as a constraint in the analysis of stars that host transiting exoplanets can significantly improve the precision of the planet radius estimate in cases where the…
Mean densities of major and dwarf planets are possible to calculate by the values of the planets distance to the Sun, the mean densities of massive natural satellites of planets are computable by the satellites distance to the Sun and the…
Mass and radius of planets transiting their host stars are provided by radial velocity and photometric observations. Structural models of solid exoplanet interiors are then constructed by using equations of state for the radial density…
To determine the physical parameters of a transiting planet and its host star from photometric and spectroscopic analysis, it is essential to independently measure the stellar mass. This is often achieved by the use of evolutionary tracks…
The properties of a transiting planet's host star are written in its transit light curve. The light curve can reveal the stellar density and the limb darkening profile in addition to the characteristics of the planet and its orbit. For…
We propose to determine the mass and the radius of a neutron star (NS) using three measurable mass-radius relationships, namely the ``apparent'' radius inferred from neutron star thermal emission, the gravitational redshift inferred from…
Physical properties of stars such as luminosity, surface temperature, distance, or mass are measured from observations. These physical properties are of paramount importance to understand how stars are born, live, and die in the universe…
Accurate and precise values of radii and masses of stars are needed to correctly estimate properties of extrasolar planets. We examine the effect of uncertainties in stellar model parameters on estimates of the masses, radii and average…
There is a unique solution of the planet and star parameters from a planet transit light curve with two or more transits if the planet has a circular orbit and the light curve is observed in a band pass where limb darkening is negligible.…
The study of stellar oscillations - asteroseismology - has revolutionized our understanding of the physical properties of the Sun, and similar potential for other stars has been demonstrated in recent years. In particular, asteroseismic…
Neutron stars are the densest, directly observable stellar objects in the universe and serve as unique astrophysical laboratories to study the behavior of matter under extreme physical conditions. This book chapter is devoted to describing…
High-precision radial-velocity techniques, which enabled the detection of extrasolar planets are now sensitive to relativistic effects in the data of spectroscopic binary stars (SBs). We show how these effects can be used to derive the…
Studies of transiting extra-solar planets are of key importance for understanding the nature of planets outside our Solar System, because their densities can be determined, constraining of what the planets are made of. Using the data…
Recent analysis of the Doppler shift oscillations of the light from extra-solar planetary systems indicate that some of these systems have more than one large planet. In this case it has been shown that the masses of these planets can be…
A simple metric can be used to determine whether a planet or exoplanet can clear its orbital zone during a characteristic time scale, such as the lifetime of the host star on the main sequence. This criterion requires only estimates of star…