Related papers: Transit Probabilities in Secularly Evolving Planet…
We develop a general method to fit the planetary distribution function (PLDF) to exoplanet survey data. This maximum likelihood method accommodates more than one planet per star and any number of planet or target star properties.…
The existence of planets orbiting a central binary star system immediately raises questions regarding their formation and dynamical evolution. Recent discoveries of circumbinary planets by the Kepler space telescope has shown that some of…
The determination of an exoplanet as rocky is critical for the assessment of planetary habitability. Observationally, the number of small-radius, transiting planets with accompanying mass measurements is insufficient for a robust…
A handful of stars are known to host both an inner system of multiple transiting planets and an outer giant planet. These systems all feature a prominent gap between the orbits of two of the transiting planets, distinguishing them from…
The transit technique is responsible for the majority of exoplanet discoveries to date. Characterizing these planets involves careful modeling of their transit profiles. A common technique involves expressing the transit duration using a…
In the last few years, a number of planets have been proposed to orbit several post main-sequence binary star systems on the basis of observed variations in the timing of eclipses between the binary components. A common feature of these…
We investigate the orbital dynamics of circumbinary planetary systems with two planets around a circular or eccentric orbit binary. The orbits of the two planet are initially circular and coplanar to each other, but misaligned with respect…
The architecture of a planetary system can influence the habitability of a planet via orbital effects, particularly in the areas of stability and eccentricity. Some of these effects are readily apparent, particularly when they occur on…
Roughly half of Solar-type planet hosts have stellar companions, so understanding how these binary companions affect the formation and evolution of planets is an important component to understanding planetary systems overall. Measuring the…
It has been demonstrated that systems of tightly packed inner planets with giant exterior companions tend to have less regular orbital spacings than those without such companions. We investigate whether this observed increase in the gap…
About one-third of the ~1200 transiting planet candidates detected in the first four months of \ik data are members of multiple candidate systems. There are 115 target stars with two candidate transiting planets, 45 with three, 8 with four,…
Surveys have revealed many multi-planet systems containing super-Earths and Neptunes in orbits of a few days to a few months. There is debate whether in situ assembly or inward migration is the dominant mechanism of the formation of such…
Stars do not form in isolation but together with other stars, and often in a clustered environment. Depending on the initial conditions in these environments, such as initial density and substructure, the distances of encounters between…
When we are fortunate enough to view an exoplanetary system nearly edge-on, the star and planet periodically eclipse each other. Observations of eclipses (transits and occultations) provide a bonanza of information that cannot be obtained…
Detection of a planetary ring of exoplanets remains as one of the most attractive but challenging goals in the field. We present a methodology of a systematic search for exoplanetary rings via transit photometry of long-period planets. The…
Statistical analyses of large surveys for transiting planets such as the Kepler mission must account for systematic errors and biases. Transit detection depends not only on the planet's radius and orbital period, but also on host star…
Knowledge of an exoplanet's oblateness and obliquity would give clues about its formation and internal structure. In principle, a light curve of a transiting planet bears information about the planet's shape, but previous work has shown…
The discovery of Exoplanetary Systems has challenged some of the theories of planet formation, which assume unperturbed evolution of the host star and its planets. However, in star clusters the interactions with flyby stars and binaries may…
This paper studies the effects of dynamical interactions among the planets in observed extrasolar planetary systems, including hypothetical additional bodies, with a focus on secular perturbations. These interactions cause the…
Never before has the detection and characterization of exoplanets via transit photometry been as promising and feasible as it is now, due to the increasing breadth and sensitivity of time domain optical surveys. Past works have made use of…