Related papers: On The Relative Sizes of Planets Within Kepler Mul…
We present the results of an independent search of all ~200,000 stars observed over the four year Kepler mission (Q1-Q17) for multiplanet systems, using a three-transit minimum detection criteria to search orbital periods up to hundreds of…
The Kepler mission discovered 2842 exoplanet candidates with 2 years of data. We provide updates to the Kepler planet candidate sample based upon 3 years (Q1-Q12) of data. Through a series of tests to exclude false-positives, primarily…
Discoveries from the prime Kepler mission demonstrated that small planets (< 3 Earth-radii) are common outcomes of planet formation. While Kepler detected many such planets, all but a handful orbit faint, distant stars and are not amenable…
Moderately close binaries are a special class of targets for planet searches. From a theoretical standpoint, their hospitality to giant planets is uncertain and debated. From an observational standpoint, many of these systems present…
The census of exoplanets is incomplete for orbital distances larger than 1 AU. Here, we present 41 long-period planet candidates in 38 systems identified by Planet Hunters based on Kepler archival data (Q0-Q17). Among them, 17 exhibit only…
Small planets ($R_{p} \leq 4 R_{\oplus}$) are divided into rocky super-Earths and gaseous sub-Neptunes separated by a radius gap, but the mechanisms that produce these distinct planet populations remain unclear. Binary stars are the only…
It has long been known that stars with high metallicity are more likely to host giant planets than stars with low metallicity. Yet the connection between host star metallicity and the properties of small planets is only just beginning to be…
(Abridged) The solar system gas giant planets are oblate due to their rapid rotation. A measurement of the planet's projected oblateness would constrain the planet's rotational period. Planets that are synchronously rotating with their…
We follow the microlensing approach and quantify the occurrence of Kepler exoplanets as a function of planet-to-star mass ratio, q, rather than planet radius or mass. For planets with radii ~1-6 R_earth and periods <100 days, we find that,…
While the vast majority of multiple-planet systems have their orbital angular momentum axes aligned with the spin axis of their host star, Kepler-56 is an exception: its two transiting planets are coplanar yet misaligned by at least 40…
Planet formation is often considered in the context of one circumstellar disk around one star. Yet stellar binary systems are ubiquitous, and thus a substantial fraction of all potential planets must form and evolve in more complex,…
Recent astronomical observations obtained with the Kepler and TESS missions and their related ground-based follow-ups revealed an abundance of exoplanets with a size intermediate between Earth and Neptune. A low occurrence rate of planets…
The search for habitable planets like Earth around other stars fulfils an ancient imperative to understand our origins and place in the cosmos. The past decade has seen the discovery of hundreds of planets, but nearly all are gas giants…
We develop a general method to fit the planetary distribution function (PLDF) to exoplanet survey data. This maximum likelihood method accommodates more than one planet per star and any number of planet or target star properties.…
The exotic range of known planetary systems has provoked an equally exotic range of physical explanations for their diverse architectures. However, constraining formation processes requires mapping the observed exoplanet population to that…
An intriguing trend among \kepler's multi-planet systems is an overabundance of planet pairs with period ratios just wide of a mean motion resonance (MMR) and a dearth of systems just narrow of them. Traditional planet formation models are…
(abridged) Observations of exoplanets indicate the existence of several correlations in the architecture of planetary systems. Exoplanets within a system tend to be of similar size and mass, evenly spaced, and are often ordered in size and…
A key component of characterizing multi-planet exosystems is testing the orbital stability based on the observed properties. Such characterization not only tests the validity of how observations are interpreted but can also place additional…
Analyzing exoplanets detected by radial velocity or transit observations, we determine the multiplicity of exoplanet host stars in order to study the influence of a stellar companion on the properties of planet candidates. Matching the host…
The Kepler mission is dramatically increasing the number of planets known in multi-planetary systems. Many adjacent planets have orbital period ratios near resonant values, with a tendency to be larger than required for exact first-order…