Related papers: Timing by Stellar Pulsations as an Exoplanet Disco…
Stars are uniform spheres, but only to first order. The way in which stellar rotation and magnetism break this symmetry places important observational constraints on stellar magnetic fields, and factors in the assessment of the impact of…
Hundreds of substellar companions to solar-type stars will be discovered with the Kepler satellite. Kepler's extreme photometric precision gives access to low-amplitude stellar variability contributed by a variety of physical processes. We…
Asteroseismology of solar-type stars has an important part to play in the exoplanet program of the NASA Kepler Mission. Precise and accurate inferences on the stellar properties that are made possible by the seismic data allow very tight…
Planets reflect and linearly polarize the radiation that they receive from their host stars. The emergent polarization is sensitive to aspects of the planet atmosphere such as the gas composition and the occurrence of condensates and their…
There are several physical processes that mediate the interaction between an exoplanet and its host star, with the four main ones being due to magnetic, particle (stellar outflow), radiative and tidal interactions. These interactions can be…
Both direct and indirect methods of exoplanet detection rely upon detailed knowledge of the potential host stars. Such stellar characterization allows for accurate extraction of planetary properties, as well as contributing to our overall…
For much of human history we have wondered how our solar system formed, and whether there are any other planets like ours around other stars. Only in the last 20 years have we had direct evidence for the existence of exoplanets, with the…
(abridged) Stars spend most of their life on the main sequence (MS). But their most substantial changes occur off the MS stage, either before on the pre-MS or beyond at the post-MS phase. Due to very complex and varied dynamical processes,…
The precise radial velocity technique is a cornerstone of exoplanetary astronomy. Astronomers measure Doppler shifts in the star's spectral features, which track the line-of/sight gravitational accelerations of a star caused by the planets…
The sensitivity of radial velocity (RV) surveys for exoplanet detection are extending to increasingly long orbital periods, where companions with periods of several years are now being regularly discovered. Companions with orbital periods…
Stellar magnetic activity is an important factor in the formation and evolution of exoplanets. Magnetic phenomena like stellar flares, coronal mass ejections, and high-energy emission affect the exoplanetary atmosphere and its mass loss…
Exoplanets, or planets outside our own solar system, have long been of interest to astronomers; however, only in the past two decades have scientists had the technology to characterize and study planets so far away from us. With advanced…
Many stars exhibit stellar pulsations, favoring them for asteroseismic analyses. Interpreting the oscillations requires some knowledge of the oscillation mode geometry (spherical degree, radial and azimuthal orders). The delta Scuti stars…
One of the persistent complications in searches for transiting exoplanets is the low percentage of the detected candidates that ultimately prove to be planets, which significantly increases the load on the telescopes used for the follow-up…
Owing to technological advances, the number of exoplanets discovered has risen dramatically in the last few years. However, when trying to observe Earth analogs, it is often difficult to test the veracity of detection. We have developed a…
Due to their extremely small luminosity compared to the stars they orbit, planets outside our own Solar System are extraordinarily difficult to detect directly in optical light. Careful photometric monitoring of distant stars, however, can…
The probability of the detection of Earth-like exoplanets may increase in the near future after the launch of the space missions using the transit photometry as observation method. By using this technique only the semi-major axis of the…
Extrasolar planets on eccentric short-period orbits provide a laboratory in which to study radiative and tidal interactions between a planet and its host star under extreme forcing conditions. Studying such systems probes how the planet's…
With the recent discoveries of hundreds of extrasolar planets, the search for planets like Earth and life in the universe, is quickly gaining momentum. In the future, large space observatories could directly detect the light scattered from…
Pulsar timing is a technique that uses the highly stable spin periods of neutron stars to investigate a wide range of topics in physics and astrophysics. Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) use sets of extremely well-timed pulsars as a Galaxy-scale…