Related papers: Stellar wobble in triple star systems
The radial velocity technique is currently used to classify transiting objects. While capable of identifying grazing binary eclipses, this technique cannot reliably identify blends, a chance overlap of a faint background eclipsing binary…
A growing number of close binary stars are being discovered among central stars of planetary nebulae. Recent and ongoing surveys are finding new systems and contributing to our knowledge of the evolution of close binary systems. The push to…
The difference in formation process between binary stars and planetary systems is reflected in their composition as well as their orbital architecture, particularly orbital eccentricity as a function of orbital period. It is suggested here…
We ask if Earth-like planets (terrestrial mass and habitable-zone orbit) can be detected in multi-planet systems, using astrometric and radial velocity observations. We report here the preliminary results of double-blind calculations…
Many stars, including those in binary or multiple systems, exhibit modified rotational evolution due to tidal interactions. While magnetic braking slows rotation in single stars, close binaries experience synchronization from tidal forces,…
The gravitational microlensing technique allows the discovery of exoplanets around stars distributed in the disk of the galaxy towards the bulge. However, the alignment of two stars that led to the discovery is unique over the timescale of…
I present a brief summary of three different types of binary star - astrometric, spectroscopic and eclipsing - and tabulate the properties of these systems that can be determined directly from observations. Eclipsing binary stars are the…
Observations of extrasolar planets reveal that planets can be found in close binary systems, where the semi-major axis of the binary orbit is less than 20 AU. The existence of these planets challenges planet formation theory, because the…
The Kepler mission has provided high quality light curves for more than 2000 eclipsing binaries. Tertiary companions to these binaries can be detected if they transit one or both stars in the binary or if they perturb the binary enough to…
We determine the evolution of a giant planet-disk system that orbits a member of a binary star system and is mildly inclined with respect to the binary orbital plane. The planet orbit and disk are initially mutually coplanar. We analyze the…
The effects which star cluster concentration and binarity have on observable parameters, that characterise the dynamical state of a population of stars after their birth aggregate dissolves, are investigated. To this end, the correlations…
Given the considerable percentage of stars that are members of binaries or stellar multiples in the Solar neighborhood, it is expected that many of these binaries host planets, possibly even habitable ones. The discovery of a terrestrial…
It is now clear that a binary formation pathway is responsible for a significant fraction of planetary nebulae, and this increased sample of known binaries means that we are now in a position to begin to constrain their influence on the…
Planets that revolve around a binary pair of stars are known as circumbinary planets. The orbital motion of the stars around their center of mass causes a periodic variation in the total instellation incident upon a circumbinary planet.…
Under certain conditions, stellar radial velocities can be determined from astrometry, without any use of spectroscopy. This enables us to identify phenomena, other than the Doppler effect, that are displacing spectral lines. The change of…
Stars in short-period binaries typically have spins that are aligned and synchronized with the orbit of their companion. In triple systems, however, the combination of spin and orbital precession can cause the star's rotation to evolve to a…
A survey of currently known planet-hosting stars indicates that approximately 25% of extrasolar planetary systems are within dual-star environments. Several of these systems contain stellar companions on moderately close orbits, implying…
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…
A number of efforts are underway to detect close binary stars in planetary nebulae. The primary goal of these studies is to determine the binary fraction of central stars. The next stage is a detailed analysis of the binaries to determine…
An extrasolar planet can be detected via microlensing from the perturbation it makes in the smooth lensing light curve of the primary. In addition to the conventional photometric microlensing, astrometric observation of the center-of-light…