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We present results of a high-resolution, near-infrared survey of 41 nearby, young (<~300 Myr) M0-M5.0 dwarfs using the Altair natural guide star adaptive optics system at the Gemini North telescope. Twelve of the objects appear to be…
Many short-period binary stars have distant orbiting companions that have played a role in driving the binary components into close separation. Indirect detection of a tertiary star is possible by measuring apparent changes in eclipse times…
Eclipsing binaries are vital for directly determining stellar parameters without reliance on models or scaling relations. Spectroscopically derived parameters of detached and semi-detached binaries allow us to determine component masses…
Asteroseismology may in principle be used to detect unresolved stellar binary systems comprised of solar-type stars and/or red giants. This novel method relies on the detection of the presence of two solar-like oscillation spectra in the…
It is well established that roughly half of all nearby solar-type stars have at least one companion. Stellar companions can have significant implications for the detection and characterization of exoplanets, including triggering false…
High resolution imaging is an important tool for follow-up study of exoplanet candidates found via transit detection with the Kepler Mission. We discuss here HST imaging with the WFC3 of 23 stars that host particularly interesting Kepler…
We perform a search for faint, common proper motion companions of Hipparcos stars using the recently published LSPM-north catalog of stars with proper motion mu>0.15 arcsec/yr. Our survey uncovers a total of 521 systems with angular…
We outline a mechanism that explains the observed lack of circumbinary planets (CBPs) via coupled stellar-tidal evolution of isolated binary stars. Tidal forces between low-mass, short-period binary stars on the pre-main sequence slow the…
It is unclear how very close binary stars form, given that during the pre-main-sequence phase the component stars would have been inside each other. One hypothesis is that they formed further apart, but were brought in closer after…
The CoRoT and Kepler satellites were the first space platforms designed to perform high-precision photometry for a large number of stars. Multiple systems display a wide variety of photometric variability, making them natural benefactors of…
High-contrast adaptive optics imaging is a powerful technique to probe the architectures of planetary systems from the outside-in and survey the atmospheres of self-luminous giant planets. Direct imaging has rapidly matured over the past…
The NASA TESS mission has discovered many transiting planets orbiting bright nearby stars, and high-resolution imaging studies have revealed that a number of these exoplanet hosts reside in binary or multiple star systems. In such systems,…
Close binary systems present challenges to planet formation. As binary separations decrease, so too do the occurrence rates of protoplanetary disks in young systems and planets in mature systems. For systems that do retain disks, their disk…
The vast diversity of planetary systems detected to date is defying our capability of understanding their formation and evolution. Well-defined volume-limited surveys are the best tool at our disposal to tackle the problem, via the…
The past two decades have seen a significant advancement in the detection, classification and understanding of exoplanets and binaries. This is due, in large part, to the increase in use of small-aperture telescopes (< 20 cm) to survey…
We compile a sample of 341 binary and multiple star systems with the aim of searching for and characterising Kuiper belt-like debris discs. The sample is assembled by combining several smaller samples studied in previously published work…
Observations of exoplanets and protoplanetary disks show that binary stellar systems can host planets in stable orbits. Given the high binary fraction among stars, the contribution of binary systems to Galactic habitability should be…
We carried out a radial velocity survey for spectroscopic binaries in the low density globular cluster NGC5053. Our sample contains a total of 77 cluster member giant and subgiant stars with visual magnitudes of 14.5-18.6. Of these 77…
The typical product of the star formation process is a binary star. Binaries have provided the first dynamical measures of the masses of pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars, providing support for the calibrations of PMS evolutionary tracks.…
The discovery of the short-period giant exoplanet population, the so-called hot Jupiter population, and their link to brown dwarfs and low-mass stars challenges the conventional view of planet formation and evolution. We took advantage of…