Related papers: Planet Occurrence: Doppler and Transit Surveys
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…
We examine the effect of secular perturbations by giant planets on systems of multiple, lower mass planets orbiting Sun-like stars. We simulate the effects of forcing both eccentricity and inclination, separately and together. We compare…
The detection of thousands of extrasolar planets by the transit method naturally raises the question of whether potential extrasolar observers could detect the transits of the Solar System planets. We present a comprehensive analysis of the…
Planetary transits provide a unique opportunity to investigate the surface distributions of star spots. Our aim is to determine if, with continuous observation (such as the data that will be provided by the Kepler mission), we can in…
A large number of direct imaging surveys for exoplanets have been performed in recent years, yielding the first directly imaged planets and providing constraints on the prevalence and distribution of wide planetary systems. However, like…
We examine characteristics of circumbinary orbits in the context of current planet formation scenarios. Analytical perturbation theory predicts the existence of nested circumbinary orbits that are generalizations of circular paths around a…
With 40 or more transiting exoplanets now known, the time is ripe to seek patterns and correlations among their observed properties, which may give important insights into planet formation, structure, and evolution. This task is made…
Super-Earths and sub-Neptunes represent the most common class of exoplanets discovered to date in our galaxy, yet they have no direct analogues in the Solar System. Since 2014, researchers within the NCCR PlanetS have made significant…
Stars and planets are the fundamental objects of the Universe. Their formation processes, though related, may differ in important ways. Stars almost certainly form from gravitational collapse and probably have formed this way since the…
The presence of a stellar companion closer than ~100 AU is likely to affect planet formation and evolution. Yet, the precise effects and their actual impact on planet occurrence are still debated. To bring observational constraints, we have…
We propose a planet formation scenario to explain the elevated occurrence rates of transiting planets around M dwarfs compared to sun-like stars discovered by Kepler. We use a pebble drift and accretion model to simulate the growth of…
Long-period transiting exoplanets provide an opportunity to study the mass-radius relation and internal structure of extrasolar planets. Their studies grant insights into planetary evolution akin to the Solar System planets, which, in…
Since the discovery of the first exoplanets, those most adequate for life to begin and evolve have been sought. Due to observational bias, however, most of the discovered planets so far are gas giants, precluding their habitability.…
Over the last few years, several close orbiting ($\sim 0.05$ AU) large mass planets ($M \sim M_{Jupiter}$) of nearby stars have been discovered. Their existence has been inferred from tiny doppler shifts in the light from the star. We…
The Kepler mission has provided high quality light curves for more than 2000 eclipsing binaries. Tertiary companions to these binaries can be detected if they transit one or both stars in the binary or if they perturb the binary enough to…
Exoplanet occurrence rates facilitate comparisons between observations of planets and theoretical models of planet formation. Despite their deductive power, exoplanet occurrence rates for half the stars in the sky are missing because…
Numerous telescopes and techniques have been used to find and study extrasolar planets, but none has been more successful than NASA's Kepler Space Telescope. Kepler has discovered the majority of known exoplanets, the smallest planets to…
In this thesis, I explore two topics in exoplanet science. The first is the prevalence of Earth-size planets in the Milky Way Galaxy. To determine the occurrence of planets having different sizes, orbital periods, and other properties, I…
The discovery of planets around PSR~1257+12 suggests that planetary systems may be detected around the recycled pulsars found in globular clusters. Planetary systems in dense clusters have lifetimes to disruption due to perturbations by…
The study of stellar oscillations - asteroseismology - has revolutionized our understanding of the physical properties of the Sun, and similar potential for other stars has been demonstrated in recent years. In particular, asteroseismic…