Related papers: Second-generation microlensing planet surveys: a r…
Determining whether Earth-like planets are common or rare looms as a touchstone in the question of life in the universe. We searched for Earth-size planets that cross in front of their host stars by examining the brightness measurements of…
One important strength of the microlensing method in detecting extrasolar planets is its high sensitivity to low-mass planets. However, it is often believed that microlensing detections of Earth-mass planets from ground-based observation…
We investigate an in-situ formation scenario for Earth-mass terrestrial planets in short-period, potentially habitable orbits around low-mass stars (M_star < 0.3 M_sun). We then investigate the feasibility of detecting these Earth-sized…
To understand the frequency, and thus the formation and evolution, of planetary systems like our own solar system, it is critical to detect Jupiter-like planets in Jupiter-like orbits. For long-term radial-velocity monitoring, it is useful…
Though free-floating planets (FFPs) may outpopulate their bound counterparts in the terrestrial-mass range, they remain one of the least explored exoplanet demographics. Due to their negligible electromagnetic emission at all wavelengths,…
OGLE III and MOA II are discovering 600-1000 Galactic Bulge microlens events each year. This stretches the resources available for intensive follow-up monitoring of the lightcurves in search of anomalies caused by planets near the lens…
We present the results of searching the Kepler Q2 public dataset for the secondary eclipses of 76 hot Jupiter planet candidates from the list of 1,235 candidates published by Borucki et al. (2011). This search has been performed by modeling…
With several detections, the technique of gravitational microlensing has proven useful for studying planets that orbit stars at Galactic distances, and it can even be applied to detect planets in neighbouring galaxies. So far, planet…
We define a second-order moment of the observational differential microlensing curves that can be used to impose constraints on physical properties of lensed quasars. We show that this quantity is sensitive both to variations in the source…
Planet population synthesis models predict an abundance of planets with semi-major axes between 1-10 au, yet they lie at the edge of the detection limits of most planet finding techniques. Discovering these planets and studying their…
In our solar system massive outer planets dominate in terms of both mass and angular momentum, but few such planets are among the more than 4000 currently confirmed exoplanets, and none of these have accurately determined densities. Here I…
We detect a cold, terrestrial planet in a binary-star system using gravitational microlensing. The planet has low mass (2 Earth masses) and lies projected at $a_{\perp,ph}$ ~ 0.8 astronomical units (AU) from its host star, similar to the…
We propose that the presence of additional planets in extrasolar planetary systems can be detected by long-term transit timing studies. If a transiting planet is on an eccentric orbit then the presence of another planet causes a secular…
The probability of detecting a planetary companion of a lensing star during a microlensing event toward the Galactic center, averaged over all relevant event and galactic parameters, when the planet-star mass ratio $q=0.001$ has a maximum…
Long-period transiting exoplanets provide an opportunity to study the mass-radius relation and internal structure of extrasolar planets. Their studies grant insights into planetary evolution akin to the Solar System planets, which, in…
Microlensing is able to reveal multiple body systems located several kilo-parsec away from the Earth. Since it does not require the measurement of light from the lens, microlensing is sensitive to a range of objects from free-floating…
The detection of thousands of extrasolar planets by the transit method naturally raises the question of whether potential extrasolar observers could detect the transits of the Solar System planets. We present a comprehensive analysis of the…
We investigate a new approach to the detection of companions to extrasolar planets beyond the transit method. We discuss the possibility of the existence of binary planets. We develop a method based on the imaging of a planet-companion as…
The discovery of habitable exoplanets has long been a heated topic in astronomy. Traditional methods for exoplanet identification include the wobble method, direct imaging, gravitational microlensing, etc., which not only require a…
The number of extrasolar planets discovered is increasing, so that more than five thousand exoplanets have been confirmed to date. Now we have an opportunity to test the validity of the laws governing planetary systems and take steps to…