Related papers: Metallicity-Dependent Signatures in the Kepler Pla…
Planet engulfment can be inferred from enhancement of refractory elements in the photosphere of the engulfing star following accretion of rocky planetary material. Such refractory enrichments are subject to stellar interior mixing…
The exoplanet mass radius diagram reveals that super Earths display a wide range of radii, and therefore mean densities, at a given mass. Using planet population synthesis models, we explore the key physical factors that shape this…
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…
We present evidence that stars with planets exhibit statistically significant silicon and nickel enrichment over the general metal-rich population. We also present simulations which predict silicon enhancement of planet hosts within the…
Tentative evidence that the properties of evolved stars with planets may be different from what we know for MS hosts has been recently reported. We aim to test whether evolved stars with planets show any chemical peculiarity that could be…
The chemical abundances of planet-hosting stars offer a glimpse into the composition of planet-forming environments. To further understand this connection, we make the first ever measurement of the correlation between planet occurrence and…
One of the most significant advances by NASA's ${\mathit Kepler}$ Mission was the discovery of an abundant new population of highly irradiated planets with sizes between the Earth and Neptune. Subsequent analysis showed that at ~1.5 Earth…
Kepler is a space telescope that searches Sun-like stars for planets. Its major goal is to determine {\eta}_Earth, the fraction of Sunlike stars that have planets like Earth. When a planet 'transits' or moves in front of a star, Kepler can…
The growing database of exoplanets have shown us the statistical characteristics of various exoplanet populations, providing insight towards their origins. Observational evidence suggests that the process by which gas giants are conceived…
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…
During their formation, planets form large, hot atmospheres due to the ongoing accretion of solids. It has been customary to assume that all solids end up at the center constituting a "core" of refractory materials, whereas the envelope…
Context. The stars in the Milky Way thin and thick disks can be distinguished by several properties such as metallicity and kinematics. It is not clear whether the two populations also differ in the properties of planets orbiting the stars.…
We investigate the relationship between stellar mass, metallicity and gas content for a magnitude- and volume-limited sample of 260 nearby late-type galaxies in different environments, from isolated galaxies to Virgo cluster members. We…
The core accretion hypothesis posits that planets with significant gaseous envelopes accreted them from their protoplanetary discs after the formation of rocky/icy cores. Observations indicate that such exoplanets exist at a broad range of…
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,…
The bulk-metallicity determination of giant exoplanets is essential to constrain their formation and evolution pathways and to compare them to the solar system. Previous studies inferred an inverse relation between the mass and bulk…
The composition of the protoplanetary disc is linked to the composition of the host star, where a higher overall metallicity of the host star provides more building blocks for planets. However, most planet formation simulations only link…
We exploit the SDSS galaxy groups catalogue of Yang et al. to study how the gas-phase metallicities of star-forming galaxies depend on environment. We find that satellite and central galaxies follow a qualitatively similar stellar mass…
The Neptune desert is no longer empty. A handful of close-in planets with masses between those of Neptune and Saturn have now been discovered, and their puzzling properties have inspired a number of interesting theories on the formation and…
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…