Related papers: A Posteriori Transit Probabilities
Bayesian statistics has two common measures of central tendency of a posterior distribution: posterior means and Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) estimates. In this paper, we discuss a connection between MAP estimates and posterior means. We…
Planet Planet scattering is a leading dynamical mechanism invoked to explain the present orbital distribution of exoplanets. Many stars belong to binary systems, therefore it is important to understand how this mechanism works in presence…
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 study convergence rates of variational posterior distributions for nonparametric and high-dimensional inference. We formulate general conditions on prior, likelihood, and variational class that characterize the convergence rates. Under…
It is possible to learn about the orientation of a star's rotation axis by combining measurements of the star's rotation velocity ($v$) and its projection onto our line of sight ($v\sin i$). This idea has found many applications, including…
The initial orbits of infalling subhalos largely determine the subsequent evolution of the subhalos and satellite galaxies therein and shed light on the assembly of their hosts. Using a large set of cosmological simulations of various…
The migration and encounter histories of the giant planets in our Solar System can be constrained by the obliquities of Jupiter and Saturn. We have performed secular simulations with imposed migration and N-body simulations with…
Roughly half of Solar-type planet hosts have stellar companions, so understanding how these binary companions affect the formation and evolution of planets is an important component to understanding planetary systems overall. Measuring the…
Minimization problems with respect to a one-parameter family of generalized relative entropies are studied. These relative entropies, which we term relative $\alpha$-entropies (denoted $\mathscr{I}_{\alpha}$), arise as redundancies under…
A major outstanding question regarding the formation of planetary systems is whether wide-orbit giant planets form differently than close-in giant planets. We aim to establish constraints on two key parameters that are relevant for…
Early analyses of exoplanet statistics from the Kepler Mission revealed that a model population of multiple-planet systems with low mutual inclinations (${\sim1^{\circ}-2^{\circ}}$) adequately describes the multiple-transiting systems but…
Grazing transits present a special problem for statistical studies of exoplanets. Even though grazing planetary orbits are rare (due to geometric selection effects), for many low to moderate signal-to-noise cases, a significant fraction of…
This Engineering Note addresses the challenge of estimating the probability of collision for tethered spacecraft during close encounters with other space objects. Standard probability of collision methods, based on spherical hard-body…
I present an initial investigation into a new planet detection technique that uses the transit timing of a known, transiting planet. The transits of a solitary planet orbiting a star occur at equally spaced intervals in time. If a second…
We considered the problem of stability for planets of finite mass in binary star systems. We selected a huge set of initial conditions for planetary orbits of the S-type, to perform high precision and very extended in time integrations. For…
We investigate how the statistical distribution of extrasolar planets may be combined with knowledge of the host stars' metallicity to yield constraints on the migration histories of gas giant planets. At any radius, planets that barely…
We introduce a new method to infer the posterior distribution for planet occurrence rates from radial-velocity (RV) observations. The approach combines posterior samples from the analysis of individual RV datasets of several stars, using…
We consider the tail probabilities of stock returns for a general class of stochastic volatility models. In these models, the stochastic differential equation for volatility is autonomous, time-homogeneous and dependent on only a finite…
Both ground and space-based transit observatories are poised to significantly increase the number of known transiting planets and the number of precisely measured transit times. The variation in a planet's transit times may be used to infer…
The small sizes of low mass stars in principle provide an opportunity to find Earth-like planets and "super-Earths" in habitable zones via transits. Large area synoptic surveys like Pan-STARRS and LSST will observe large numbers of low mass…