Related papers: Mass, radius, and composition of the transiting pl…
The first mass-estimate of an exoplanet around a Sun-like star, 51 Peg b and the first radius measurement of an exoplanet, HD209458b pointed to the challenges of understanding the atmosphere, interior, and evolution of exoplanets including…
We study the masses and radii of 65 exoplanets smaller than 4 Earth radii with orbital periods shorter than 100 days. We calculate the weighted mean densities of planets in bins of 0.5 Earth radii and identify a density maximum of 7.6 g/cc…
The disks that surround young stars are mostly composed of molecular gas, which is harder to detect and interpret than the accompanying dust. Disk mass measurements have therefore relied on large and uncertain extrapolations from the dust…
Sub-Neptune-sized exoplanets represent one of the most common types of planets in the Milky Way, yet many of their properties are unknown. Here, we present a prescription to adapt the capabilities of the stellar evolution toolkit Modules…
Modeling the interior of exoplanets is essential to go further than the conclusions provided by mean density measurements. In addition to the still limited precision on the planets' fundamental parameters, models are limited by the…
The mean density of a star transited by a planet, brown dwarf or low mass star can be accurately measured from its light curve. This measurement can be combined with other observations to estimate its mass and age by comparison with stellar…
The increasing precision of planetary mass and radius observations is bringing major questions about the structure and formation of planets--such as the nature of the radius valley and origin of super-Mercuries--within reach, demanding the…
In favourable conditions, the density of transiting planets in multiple systems can be determined from photometry data alone. Dynamical information can be extracted from light curves, providing modelling is done self-consistently, i.e.…
The study of exoplanets and especially their atmospheres can reveal key insights on their evolution by identifying specific atmospheric species. For such atmospheric investigations, high-resolution transmission spectroscopy has shown great…
There is a direct relation between the composition of a host star and that of the planets orbiting around it. As such, the recent discovery of stars with unusual chemical composition, notably enriched in carbon instead of oxygen, support…
To determine the physical parameters of a transiting planet and its host star from photometric and spectroscopic analysis, it is essential to independently measure the stellar mass. This is often achieved by the use of evolutionary tracks…
We present high-resolution near-infrared spectra taken during eight transits of 55 Cancri e, a nearby low-density super-Earth with a short orbital period (< 18 hours). While this exoplanet's bulk density indicates a possible atmosphere, one…
Two of TESS's major science goals are to measure masses for 50 planets smaller than 4 Earth radii and to discover high-quality targets for atmospheric characterization efforts. It is important that these two goals are linked by quantifying…
Transiting planet surveys like Kepler have provided a wealth of information on the distribution of planetary radii, particularly for the new populations of super-Earth and sub-Neptune sized planets. In order to aid in the physical…
The bright star 55 Cancri is known to host five planets, including a transiting super-Earth. The study presented here yields directly determined values for 55 Cnc's stellar astrophysical parameters based on improved interferometry: $R=0.943…
55 Cnc e is in a 0.73 day orbit transiting a Sun-like star. It has been observed that the occultation depth of this Super-Earth, with a mass of 8$M_{\bigoplus}$ and radius of 2$R_{\bigoplus}$, changes significantly over time at mid-infrared…
As part of the search for planets around evolved stars, we can understand planet populations around significantly higher-mass stars than the Sun on the main sequence. This population is difficult to study any other way, particularly with…
The position of the innermost planet (i.e., the inner edge) in a planetary system provides important information about the relationship of the entire system to its host star properties, offering potentially valuable insights into planetary…
The composition and internal structure of gas giant exoplanets encode key information about their formation and evolution. We investigate how different assumed interior structures affect the inferred bulk metallicity and its correlation…
I have demonstrated the existence of a tight correlation between the mass, radius, central density, and pressure of maximum-mass neutron stars modeled using diverse baryonic equations of state. A possible explanation for these correlations…