Related papers: Spin-orbit Misalignment as a Driver of the Kepler …

Contrary to the orthodox picture of planet formation resulting in a neatly ordered Solar System, exoplanet systems exhibit highly diverse orbits: short and long periods, circular and eccentric, well- and misaligned, and even retrograde…

Kepler will monitor enough stars that it is likely to detect single transits of planets with periods longer than the mission lifetime. We show that by combining the Kepler photometry of such transits with precise radial velocity (RV)…

The observed amplitude of the rotational photometric modulation of a star with spots should depend on the inclination of its rotational axis relative to our line of sight. Therefore, the distribution of observed rotational amplitudes of a…

The true multiplicity distribution of transiting planet systems is obscured by strong observational biases, leading low-multiplicity systems to be overrepresented in the observed sample. Using the Kepler FGK planet hosts, we employ…

Stars in short-period binaries typically have spins that are aligned and synchronized with the orbit of their companion. In triple systems, however, the combination of spin and orbital precession can cause the star's rotation to evolve to a…

Disks of bodies orbiting a much more massive central object are extremely common in astrophysics. When the orbits comprising such disks are eccentric, we show they are susceptible to a new dynamical instability. Gravitational forces between…

S-type planets, which orbit one component of multiple-star systems, place strong constraints on the planet formation and evolution models. A notable case study is Kepler-444, a triple-star system whose primary is orbited by five planets…

We examine the formation of planets around binary stars in light of the recently discovered systems Kepler 16, 34 and 35. We conduct hydrodynamical simulations of self gravitating disks around binary systems. The selected binary and disk…

Previous studies showed evidence of a dearth of close-in exoplanets around fast rotators, which can be explained by the combined action of intense tidal and magnetic interactions between planets and their host star. Detecting more…

The widespread prevalence of close-in, nearly coplanar super-Earth- and sub-Neptune-sized planets in multiple-planet systems was one of the most surprising results from the Kepler mission. By studying a uniform sample of Kepler "multis"…

Stellar rotation is a complex function of mass, metallicity, and age and can be altered by binarity. To understand the importance of these parameters in main sequence stars, we have assembled a sample of observations that spans a range of…

The sample of host stars with multiple transiting planets has illuminated the orbital architectures of exoplanetary systems. These architectures may be shaped mostly by formation conditions, be continually sculpted by ongoing dynamical…

Prior to the 1990s, speculations about the occurrence of planets around other stars were based only on planet formation theory, observations of circumstellar disks, and the knowledge that at least one seemingly ordinary star is the host of…

The Kepler-11 star hosts at least six transiting super-Earth planets detected through the precise photometric observations of the Kepler mission (Lissauer et al.). In this paper, we re-analyze the available Kepler data, using the direct…

Stellar rotation is a strong function of both mass and evolutionary state. Missions such as Kepler and CoRoT provide tens of thousands of rotation periods, drawn from stellar populations that contain objects at a range of masses, ages, and…

At least 10-15% of nearby sun-like stars have known Jupiter-mass planets. In contrast, very few planets are found in mature open and globular clusters such as the Hyades and 47 Tuc. We explore here the possibility that this dichotomy is due…

Over the last two decades, a large population of close-in planets has been detected around a wide variety of host stars. Such exoplanets are likely to undergo planetary migration through magnetic and tidal interactions. We aim to follow the…

The high-precision photometry from the CoRoT and Kepler satellites has led to measurements of surface rotation periods for tens of thousands of stars. Our main goal is to derive ages of thousands of field stars using consistent rotation…

The Kepler mission has yielded the discovery of eight circumbinary systems, all found around eclipsing binaries with periods greater than 7 d. This is longer than the typical eclipsing binary period found by Kepler, and hence there is a…

Small planets ($R_{p} \leq 4 R_{\oplus}$) are divided into rocky super-Earths and gaseous sub-Neptunes separated by a radius gap, but the mechanisms that produce these distinct planet populations remain unclear. Binary stars are the only…