Related papers: Improved Modeling of the Rossiter-McLaughlin Effec…
Precision radial velocity (RV) measurements continue to be a key tool to detect and characterise extrasolar planets. While instrumental precision keeps improving, stellar activity remains a barrier to obtain reliable measurements below 1-2…
Context: Asteroseismic measurements of the internal rotation of evolved stars indicate that at least one unknown efficient angular momentum (AM) transport mechanism is needed in stellar radiative zones. Aims: We investigate the impact of AM…
Many of the planets discovered via the radial velocity technique are hot Jupiters in 3-5 day orbits with ~10$% chance of transiting their parent star. However, radial velocity surveys for extra-solar planets generally require substantial…
The study of stellar oscillations - asteroseismology - has revolutionized our understanding of the physical properties of the Sun, and similar potential for other stars has been demonstrated in recent years. In particular, asteroseismic…
We present analytic estimates of the fractional uncertainties on the mass, radius, surface gravity, and density of a transiting planet, using only empirical or semi-empirical measurements. We first express these parameters in terms of…
We have recently identified a new radial migration mechanism resulting from the overlap of spiral and bar resonances in galactic disks. Here we confirm the efficiency of this mechanism in fully self-consistent, Tree-SPH simulations, as well…
Stellar activity features such as spots can create complications in determining planetary parameters through spectroscopic and photometric observations. The overlap of a transiting planet and a stellar spot, for instance, can produce…
Line profiles from spatially unresolved stellar observations consist of a superposition of local line profiles that result from observing the stellar atmosphere under specific viewing angles. Line profile variability caused by stellar…
Neutron stars (NSs) in low-mass X-ray binaries rotate at frequencies high enough to significantly deviate from sphericity ($\nu_* \sim$ 200--600 Hz). We investigate the effects of rapid rotation on the observational appearance of a NS. We…
Of the 26 transiting exoplanet systems with measurements of the Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) effect, eight have now been found to be significantly spin-orbit misaligned in the plane of the sky. Unfortunately, the RM effect only measures the…
Atomic diffusion with radiative levitation is a major transport process to consider to explain abundance anomalies in Am stars. Radiative accelerations vary from one species to another, yielding different abundance anomalies at the stellar…
The angular momentum (AM) evolution of stellar interiors, along with the resulting rotation rates of stellar remnants, remains poorly understood. Asteroseismic measurements of red giant stars reveal that their cores rotate much faster than…
Minor bodies of the solar system can be used to measure the spectrum of the Sun as a star by observing sunlight reflected by their surfaces. To perform an accurate measurement of the radial velocity of the Sun as a star by this method, it…
On the surface of a rapidly rotating neutron star, the effective centrifugal force decreases the effective acceleration due to gravity (as measured in the rotating frame) at the equator while increasing the acceleration at the poles due to…
A new method is presented here for evaluating approximately the pulsation modes of relativistic stellar models. This approximation relies on the fact that gravitational radiation influences these modes only on timescales that are much…
The orbital parameters of extra-solar planets have a significant impact on the probability that the planet will transit the host star. This was recently demonstrated by the transit detection of HD 17156b whose favourable eccentricity and…
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.…
Accuracies reached in space astrometry now permit the accurate determination of astrometric radial velocities, without any use of spectroscopy. Knowing this true stellar motion, spectral shifts intrinsic to stellar atmospheres can be…
Radial velocity studies of accreting binary stars commonly use accretion disk emission lines to determine the radial velocity of the primary star and therefore the mass ratio. These emission line radial velocity curves are often shifted in…
A unique analytical solution of planet and star parameters can be derived from an extrasolar planet transit light curve under a number of assumptions. This analytical solution can be used to choose the best planet transit candidates for…