Related papers: In Situ Models for Planet Assembly around Cool sta…
We present a Monte Carlo model for the structure of low mass (total mass < 25 earth mass) planetary systems that form by the in situ gravitational assembly of planetary embryos into final planets. Our model includes distributions of mass,…
Extrasolar planets abound in almost any possible configuration. However, until five years ago, there was a lack of planets orbiting closer than 0.5 au to giant or subgiant stars. Since then, recent detections have started to populated this…
Small, cool planets represent the typical end-products of planetary formation. Studying the archi- tectures of these systems, measuring planet masses and radii, and observing these planets' atmospheres during transit directly informs…
Cool M dwarfs outnumber sun-like G stars by ten to one in the solar neighborhood. Due to their proximity, small size, and low mass, M-dwarf stars are becoming attractive targets for exoplanet searches via almost all current search methods.…
We model the assembly of planets from planetary embryos under the conditions suggested by various scenarios for the formation of the planetary system around the millisecond pulsar B1257+12. We find that the most likely models fall at the…
Stable, hydrogen-burning, M dwarf stars comprise about 75% of all stars in the Galaxy. They are extremely long-lived and because they are much smaller in mass than the Sun (between 0.5 and 0.08 MSun), their temperature and stellar…
Because of their large numbers, low mass stars may be the most abundant planet hosts in our Galaxy. Furthermore, terrestrial planets in the habitable zones (HZs) around M-dwarfs can potentially be characterized in the near future and hence…
We present a statistical analysis of the Kepler M dwarf planet hosts, with a particular focus on the fractional number of systems hosting multiple transiting planets. We manufacture synthetic planetary systems within a range of planet…
The prospects for the habitability of M-dwarf planets have long been debated, due to key differences between the unique stellar and planetary environments around these low-mass stars, as compared to hotter, more luminous Sun-like stars.…
NASA's Kepler Mission uncovered a wealth of planetary systems, many with planets on short-period orbits. These short-period systems reside around 50% of Sun-like stars and are similarly prevalent around M dwarfs. Their formation and…
We present an improved estimate of the occurrence rate of small planets orbiting small stars by searching the full four-year Kepler data set for transiting planets using our own planet detection pipeline and conducting transit injection and…
In this work is investigated the possibility of close-binary star systems having Earth-size planets within their habitable zones. First, we selected all known close-binary systems with confirmed planets (totaling 22 systems) to calculate…
Terrestrial planets are commonly observed to orbit M dwarfs with close-in trajectories. In this work, we extensively perform N-body simulations of planetesimal accretion with three models of in-situ, inward migration and reversed migration…
We use the optical and near-infrared photometry from the Kepler Input Catalog to provide improved estimates of the stellar characteristics of the smallest stars in the Kepler target list. We find 3897 dwarfs with temperatures below 4000K,…
Almost half of the stellar systems in the solar neighborhood are made up of multiple stars. In multiple-star systems, planet formation is under the dynamical influence of stellar companions, and the planet occurrence rate is expected to be…
With more than 260 extrasolar planetary systems discovered to-date, the search for habitable planets has found new grounds. Unlike our solar system, the stars of many of these planets are hosts to eccentric or close-in giant bodies. Several…
We investigated the underlying architecture of planetary systems by deriving the distribution of planet multiplicity (number of planets) and the distribution of orbital inclinations based on the sample of planet candidates discovered by the…
The population of hot Jupiters with adjacent planetary companions is small but growing, and inner companions appear to be a nearly ubiquitous outcome within this subset of the exoplanet census. While most hot Jupiters are believed to form…
The Kepler survey provides a statistical census of planetary systems out to the habitable zone. Because most planets are non-transiting, orbital architectures are best estimated using simulated observations of ensemble populations. Here, we…
`Hot jupiters,' giant planets with orbits very close to their parent stars, are thought to form farther away and migrate inward via interactions with a massive gas disk. If a giant planet forms and migrates quickly, the planetesimal…