Related papers: Hunting for binary Cepheids using lucky imaging te…
This study examines the characterization of binary star systems using Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs), a technique increasingly essential with the rise of large-scale astronomical surveys. Binaries can emit flux at different regions of…
We discuss prospects of identifying and characterizing black hole (BH) companions to normal stars on tight but detached orbits, using photometric data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). We focus on the following two…
Contact binaries can be used for distance determinations of stellar systems. They are easy to discover and identify and are very abundant among solar-type stars, particularly for M_V > +3. The period - luminosity - colour (PLC) relations…
General importance and capabilities of observations of eclipsing binaries by the forthcoming ESA mission GAIA are discussed. Availability of spectroscopic observations and a large number of photometric bands on board will make it possible…
In 2005, interferometric observations with VLTI/VINCI and CHARA/FLUOR revealed the existence of a circumstellar envelope (CSE) around some Cepheids. This surrounding material is particularly interesting for two reasons: it could have an…
Stellar pulsation theory provides a means of determining the masses of pulsating classical Cepheid supergiant - it is the pulsation that causes their luminosity to vary. Such pulsational masses are found to be smaller than the masses…
I describe a computationally simple, efficient, and sensitive method to search long observations for pulsars in binary systems. The technique looks for orbitally induced sidebands in the power spectrum around a nominal spin frequency,…
We present an algorithm to search for the faint spectrum of a second star mixed with the spectrum of a brighter star in high resolution spectra. We model optical stellar spectra as the sum of two input spectra drawn from a vast library of…
Close binary interactions perform a key role in the formation and shaping of planetary nebulae. However only a small fraction of Galactic planetary nebulae are known to host close binary systems. Many such systems are detectable through…
We have undertaken several projects with the purpose of determining accurate distances to nearby galaxies to calibrate the extragalactic distance scale. Specifically, I describe the DIRECT project which aims to derive the distance to M31…
Pulsating stars in eclipsing binary systems play an important role in asteroseismology. The combination of their spectroscopic and photometric orbital solutions can be used to determine, or at least to constrain, the masses and radii of…
A catalogue of binary galaxies with 621 pairs has been determined by applying a surface density enhancement procedure to {\it The Surface Photometry Catalogue of the ESO-Uppsala Galaxies}. The method does not require any redshift…
We predict the number of black holes with stellar companions that are potentially detectable with Gaia astrometry over the course of its five-year mission. Our model estimates that nearly 2$\times$10$^5$ astrometric binaries hosting black…
The masses of compact objects like white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes are fundamental to astrophysics, but very difficult to measure. We present the results of an analysis of subluminous B (sdB) stars in close binary systems with…
Extragalactic Cepheids are the basic rungs of the cosmic distance scale. They are excellent standard candles, although their luminosities and corresponding distance estimates can be affected by the particular properties of the host galaxy.…
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…
Galactic Cepheids are necessary tools for calibrating the period-luminosity relation, but distances to individual Galactic Cepheids are difficult to precisely measure and are limited to a small number of techniques such as direct parallax,…
A selection of known and newly-discovered northern hemisphere Cepheids and related objects are being monitored regularly through CCD observations at the automated Abbey Ridge Observatory, near Halifax, and photoelectric photometry from the…
We present the results of the second year of exoplanet candidate host speckle observations from the SOAR TESS survey. We find 89 of the 589 newly observed TESS planet candidate hosts have companions within 3\arcsec, resulting in light curve…
Straight-forward derivation of planetary parameters can only be achieved in transiting planetary systems. However, planetary attributes such as radius and mass strongly depend on stellar host parameters. Discovering a transit host star to…