Related papers: Probabilistic Mass-Radius Relationship for Sub-Nep…
Understanding the occurrence of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of Sun-like stars is essential to the search for Earth analogues. Yet a lack of reliable Kepler detections for such planets has forced many estimates to be derived…
Recent transit surveys have discovered thousands of planetary candidates with directly measured radii, but only a small fraction have measured masses. Planetary mass is crucial in assessing the feasibility of numerous observational…
The detection of young transiting exoplanets represents a new frontier in our understanding of planet formation and evolution. For the population of observed close-in sub-Neptunes, two proposed formation pathways can reproduce their…
Amongst the many hundreds of transiting planet candidates discovered by the Kepler Mission, one finds a large number of candidates with sizes between that of the Earth and Neptune. The composition of these worlds is not immediately obvious…
Contact binary star systems represent the long-lived penultimate phase of binary evolution. Population statistics of their physical parameters inform understanding of binary evolutionary pathways and end products. We use light curves and…
The population of small, close-in exoplanets is bifurcated into super-Earths and sub-Neptunes. We calculate physically motivated mass-radius relations for sub-Neptunes, with rocky cores and H/He dominated atmospheres, accounting for their…
The majority of the transiting planets discovered by the Kepler mission (called super-Earths here, includes the so-called 'sub-Neptunes') orbit close to their stars. As such, photoevaporation of their hydrogen envelopes etch sharp features…
The existence of neutron stars with $2M_\odot$ requires the strong stiffness of the equation of state (EoS) of neutron-star matter. We introduce a multi-pomeron exchange potential (MPP) working universally among 3- and 4-baryons to stiffen…
We present simulations of multi-year RV follow up campaigns of the {\it TESS} small exoplanet yield on the Automated Planet Finder telescope, using four different schemes to sample the transiting planets' RV phase curves. For planets below…
The merger of binary neutron stars (BNSs) is a remarkable astrophysical event where all four fundamental forces interplay dynamically across multiple stages, producing a rich spectrum of multi-messenger signals. These observations present a…
Early-type galaxies obey a narrow relation traced by their stellar content between the mass and size (Mass- Radius relation). The wealth of recently acquired observational data essentially confirms the classical relations found by Burstein,…
Previous studies using Kepler data suggest that planets orbiting the same star tend to have similar sizes. However, due to the faintness of the stars, only a few of the planets were also detected with radial velocity follow-ups, and…
The ''radius valley" is a relative dearth of planets between two potential populations of exoplanets, super-Earths and mini-Neptunes. This feature appears in examining the distribution of planetary radii, but has only ever been…
A systematic, population-level discrepancy exists between the densities of exoplanets whose masses have been measured with transit timing variations (TTVs) versus those measured with radial velocities (RVs). Since the TTV planets are…
We construct models of the structural evolution of super-Earth- and mini-Neptune-type exoplanets with hydrogen-helium envelopes, incorporating radiative cooling and XUV-driven mass loss. We conduct a parameter study of these models,…
The most abundant stars in the Galaxy, M dwarfs, are very commonly hosts to diverse systems of low-mass planets. Their abundancy implies that the general occurrence rate of planets is dominated by their occurrence rate around such M dwarfs.…
In order to understand the relationship between planet multiplicity, mass, and composition, we present newly measured masses of five planets in two planetary systems: Kepler-323 and Kepler-104. We used the HIRES instrument at the W.M. Keck…
The existence of a Radius Valley in the Kepler size distribution stands as one of the most important observational constraints to understand the origin and composition of exoplanets with radii between that of Earth and Neptune. The goal of…
The California-Kepler Survey (CKS) catalog contains precise stellar and planetary properties for the \Kepler\ planet candidates, including systems with multiple detected transiting planets ("multis") and systems with just one detected…
The planet formation environment around M dwarf stars is different than around G dwarf stars. The longer hot protostellar phase, activity levels and lower protoplanetary disk mass of M dwarfs all may leave imprints on the composition…