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We present elemental abundances of 118 stars (28 of which are known extrasolar planetary host stars) observed as part of the Anglo-Australian Planet Search. Abundances of O, Mg, Cr, Y, Zr, Ba, Nd and Eu (along with previously published…
Stars and planets both form by accreting material from a surrounding disk. Because they grow from the same material, theory predicts that there should be a relationship between their compositions. In this study, we search for a…
We present stellar parameters and metallicities, obtained from a detailed spectroscopic analysis, for a large sample of 98 stars known to be orbited by planetary mass companions (almost all known targets), as well as for a volume-limited…
The radius of an exoplanet may be affected by various factors, including irradiation, planet mass and heavy element content. A significant number of transiting exoplanets have now been discovered for which the mass, radius, semi-major axis,…
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…
Searching for extrasolar planets around stars of different metallicity may provide strong constraints to the models of planet formation and evolution. In this paper we present the overall results of a HARPS (a high-precision spectrograph…
We explore the origin of the trend of heavy elements in observed massive exoplanets. Coupling of better measurements of mass ($M_p$) and radius of exoplanets with planet structure models enables estimating the total heavy element mass…
Recent observations of extrasolar gas giants suggest super-stellar C/O ratios in planetary atmospheres, while interior models of observed extrasolar giant planets additionally suggest high heavy element contents. Furthermore, recent…
We examine the uncertainties in current planetary models and we quantify their impact on the planet cooling histories and mass-radius relationships. These uncertainties include (i) the differences between the various equations of state used…
With the aim of connecting the compositions of stars and planets, we present the abundances of carbon and oxygen, as well as iron and nickel, for the transiting exoplanet host star XO-2N and its wide-separation binary companion XO-2S.…
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…
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…
The apparent dependence of detection frequency of extrasolar planets on the metallicity of their host stars is investigated with Monte Carlo simulations using a deterministic core-accretion planet formation model. According to this model,…
Extrasolar planet host stars have been found to be enriched in key planet-building elements. These enrichments have the potential to drastically alter the composition of material available for terrestrial planet formation. Here we report on…
A major goal in the discovery and characterisation of exoplanets is to identify terrestrial-type worlds that are similar to (or otherwise distinct from) our Earth. Recent results have highlighted the importance of applying devolatilisation…
This work presents a homogeneous derivation of atmospheric parameters and iron abundances for a sample of giant and subgiant stars which host giant planets, as well as a control sample of subgiant stars not known to host giant planets. The…
We present refined values for the physical parameters of transiting exoplanets, based on a self-consistent and uniform analysis of transit light curves and the observable properties of the host stars. Previously it has been difficult to…
It is well known that stars orbited by giant planets have higher abundances of heavy elements when compared with average field dwarfs. A number of studies have also addressed the possibility that light element abundances are different in…
The main goal of this work is to study element ratios that are important for the formation of planets of different masses. We study potential correlations between the existence of planetary companions and the relative elemental abundances…
Directly imaged planets are self-luminous companions of pre-main sequence and young main sequence stars. They reside in wider orbits ($\sim10\mathrm{s}-1000\mathrm{s}$~AU) and generally are more massive compared to the close-in ($\lesssim…