Related papers: Bayesian mass and age estimates for transiting exo…
Context. Stochasticity and physical parameter degeneracy problems complicate the derivation of the parameters (age, mass, and extinction) of unresolved star clusters when using broad-band photometry. Aims. We develop a method to simulate…
Low-mass stars exhibit substantial pre-main sequence evolution during the first ~100 Myrs of their lives. Thus, young M-type stars are prime targets for isochronal dating, especially in young moving groups (YMGs), which contain large…
(Abridged) Eclipsing, spectroscopic double-lined binary star systems (SB2) are excellent laboratories for calibrating theories of stellar interior structure and evolution. We aim to investigate the mass discrepancy in binary stars. We study…
The conventional wisdom, dating back to 2012, is that the mass distribution of Galactic double neutron stars is well-fit by a Gaussian distribution with a mean of $1.33 M_\odot$ and a width of $0.09 M_\odot$. With the recent discovery of…
We examine the possibility that very massive stars greatly exceeding the commonly adopted stellar mass limit of 150 Msun may be present in young star clusters in the local universe. We identify ten candidate clusters, some of which may host…
The precise measurement of the masses and radii of stars in eclipsing binary systems provides a window into uncertain processes in stellar evolution, especially mixing at convective boundaries. Recently, these data have been used to…
The present study derives the distribution of secondary masses M2 for the 67 exoplanets and very low-mass brown dwarf companions of solar-type stars, known as of April 4, 2001. This distribution is related to the distribution of M2 sin i…
Stars stripped of their hydrogen-rich envelopes through binary interaction are thought to be responsible for both hydrogen-poor supernovae and the hard ionizing radiation observed in low-$Z$ galaxies. A population of these stars was…
The accuracy of stellar masses and radii determined from asteroseismology is not known! We examine this issue for giant stars by comparing classical measurements of detached eclipsing binary systems (dEBs) with asteroseismic measurements…
(ABRIDGED) We assess the systematic uncertainties in (young) cluster age, mass, and - to a lesser extent - extinction and metallicity determinations, based on broad-band imaging observations with the Hubble Space Telescope. Our aim here is…
In an era of large spectroscopic surveys of stars and big data, sophisticated statistical methods become more and more important in order to infer fundamental stellar parameters such as mass and age. Bayesian techniques are powerful methods…
Understanding the formation and evolution of our Galaxy requires accurate distances, ages and chemistry for large populations of field stars. Here we present several updates to our spectro-photometric distance code, that can now also be…
We report on a spectroscopic determination of the atmospheric parameters and chemical abundance of the parent star of the recently discovered transiting planet {TrES-2}. A detailed LTE analysis of a set of \ion{Fe}{1} and \ion{Fe}{2} lines…
We highlight the importance of eclipsing double-line binaries in our understanding on star formation and evolution. We review the recent discoveries of low-mass and sub-stellar eclipsing binaries belonging to star-forming regions, open…
We present our new, fully-automated method to detect and measure the ages of star clusters in nearby galaxies, where individual stars can be resolved. The method relies purely on statistical analysis of observations and Monte-Carlo…
We present 24 micron photometry of the intermediate-age open cluster Praesepe. We assemble a catalog of 193 probable cluster members that are detected in optical databases, the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), and at 24 micron, within an…
We apply Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to the problem of parametric galaxy modeling, estimating posterior distributions of galaxy properties such as ellipticity and brightness for more than 100,000 images of galaxies taken from DC2, a…
We construct a combined model to incorporate neutron star (NS) mass measurements with electromagnetic mass-radius constraints and gravitational-wave observations using Bayesian inference. We use different mass distributions for three…
[Abridged] We present two deep surveys of circumstellar discs around solar-type stars at different ages carried out at 350 micron with the CSO and at 1.2 mm with the IRAM 30-m telescope. The aim of this study is to understand the evolution…
Low-mass stars in eclipsing binary systems show radii larger and effective temperatures lower than theoretical stellar models predict for isolated stars with the same masses. Eclipsing binaries with low-mass components are hard to find due…