Related papers: Orbital Circularization of Hot and Cool Kepler Ecl…
The O'Connell effect - the presence of unequal maxima in eclipsing binaries - remains an unsolved riddle in the study of close binary systems. The Kepler space telescope produced high precision photometry of nearly 3,000 eclipsing binary…
For extrasolar planets with orbital periods, P>10 days, radial velocity surveys find non-circular orbital eccentricities are common, <e>~0.3. Future surveys for extrasolar planets using the transit technique will also have sensitivity to…
Tidal dissipation is responsible for circularizing the orbits and synchronizing the spins of solar-type close binary stars, but the mechanisms responsible are not fully understood. Previous work has indicated that significant enhancements…
Abstract abridged. Eclipsing binary systems provide the opportunity to measure the fundamental parameters of their component stars in a stellar-model-independent way. This makes them ideal candidates for testing and calibrating theories of…
In close binary stars, the tidal excitation of pulsations typically dissipates energy, causing the system to evolve towards a circular orbit with aligned and synchronized stellar spins. However, for stars with self-excited pulsations, we…
We calculate an empirical, non-parametric estimate of the shape of the period-marginalized radius distribution of planets with periods less than 150 days using the small yet well-characterized sample of cool ($T_{\rm eff} <4000 $K) dwarf…
Observations of hot Jupiter type exoplanets suggest that their orbital period distribution depends on the metallicity of their host star. We investigate here whether the impact of the stellar metallicity on the evolution of the tidal…
Previous studies pointed out that many observed samples of short-period binaries display a cutoff period, $P_{\rm cut}$, such that almost all binaries with periods shorter than $P_{\rm cut}$ have circular orbits. This feature is probably…
We produce and analyze eclipse time variation (ETV) curves for some 2600 Kepler binaries. We find good to excellent evidence for a third body in 222 systems via either the light-travel-time (LTTE) or dynamical effect delays. Approximately…
We study the orbital properties of stars in four (published) simulations of thick disks formed by: i) accretion from disrupted satellites, ii) heating of a pre-existing thin disk by a minor merger, iii) radial migration and iv) gas rich…
Distribution of eccentricities of very wide (up to 10 kau) low-mass binaries in the solar neighborhood is studied using the catalog of El-Badry and Rix (2018) based on Gaia. Direction and speed of relative motions in wide pairs contain…
The evolution of exoplanetary systems with a close-in planet is ruled by the tides mutually raised on the two bodies and by the magnetic braking of the host star. This paper deals with consequences of this evolution and some features that…
The stellar obliquity of a transiting planetary system can be constrained by combining measurements of the star's rotation period, radius, and projected rotational velocity. Here we present a hierarchical Bayesian technique for recovering…
R-mode oscillations in a rotating star produce characteristic signatures in a Fourier amplitude spectrum at frequencies related with the rotation frequency, which can be, in turn, used to obtain the surface rotation rate of the star. Some…
We report on a study of eclipse timing variations in contact binary systems, using long-cadence lightcurves in the Kepler archive. As a first step, 'observed minus calculated' (O-C) curves were produced for both the primary and secondary…
While cooler giant planets are often observed with non-zero eccentricities, the short-period circular orbits of hot Jupiters suggest that they lose orbital energy and angular momentum due to tidal interactions with their host stars.…
Tidal synchronization plays a fundamental role in the evolution of binary star systems. However, key details such as the timescale of synchronization, efficiency of tidal dissipation, rotational period, and dependence on stellar mass are…
The dynamical evolution of short-period low-mass binary stars (with mass $M < 1.5M_{\odot}$, from formation to the late main-sequence, and with orbital periods less than $\sim$10 days) is strongly influenced by tidal dissipation. This…
We show that stars with transiting planets for which the stellar obliquity is large are preferentially hot (T_eff > 6250 K). This could explain why small obliquities were observed in the earliest measurements, which focused on relatively…
It is shown herein that planets with eccentric orbits are more likely to transit than circularly orbiting planets with the same semimajor axis by a factor of (1-e^2)^{-1}. If the orbital parameters of discovered transiting planets are…