Related papers: Substellar Multiplicity Throughout the Ages
Most of our current understanding of the planet formation mechanism is based on the planet metallicity correlation derived mostly from solar-type stars harbouring gas-giant planets. To achieve a far more reaching grasp on the substellar…
We highlight the importance of eclipsing double-line binaries in our understanding on star formation and evolution. We review the recent discoveries of low-mass and sub-stellar eclipsing binaries belonging to star-forming regions, open…
Clouds seem like an every-day experience. But -- do we know how clouds form on brown dwarfs and extra-solar planets? How do they look like? Can we see them? What are they composed of? Cloud formation is an old-fashioned but still…
Studies of stellar populations, understood to mean collections of stars with common spatial, kinematic, chemical, and/or age distributions, have been reinvigorated during the last decade by the advent of large-area sky surveys such as SDSS,…
White dwarfs are the most common endpoints of stellar evolution. They are often found in close binary systems in which the white dwarf is accreting matter from a companion star, either via an accretion disc or channelled along the white…
We present new evidence for a problem with cooling rates predicted by substellar evolutionary models that implies model-derived masses in the literature for brown dwarfs and directly imaged planets may be too high. Based on our dynamical…
We know that planetary systems are just as common around white dwarfs as around main sequence stars. However, self-consistently linking a planetary system across these two phases of stellar evolution through the violent giant branch poses…
Brown dwarfs -- substellar bodies more massive than planets but not massive enough to initiate the sustained hydrogen fusion that powers self-luminous stars -- are born hot and slowly cool as they age. As they cool below about 2,300 K,…
We investigate how the multiplicity of binary, triple and quadruple star systems changes as the systems evolve from the zero-age main-sequence to the Hubble time. We find the change in multiplicity fractions over time for each data set,…
We conduct a multiplicity survey of members of the rho Ophiuchus cloud complex with high resolution imaging to characterize the multiple star population of this nearby star forming region and investigate the relation between stellar…
By virtue of their young age and intermediate mass, Herbig AeBe stars represent a cornerstone for our understanding of the mass-dependency of both the stellar and planetary formation processes. In this contribution, I review the current…
Massive early-type stars vary; low-mass late-type brown dwarfs vary, too. I will make a short, but illustrative, summary of my previous studies on stellar and sub-stellar photometric variability (including the discovery of the most variable…
Cool subdwarfs are the oldest members of the low mass stellar population. Mostly present in the galactic halo, subdwarfs are characterized by their low metallicity. Measuring their binary fraction and comparing it to solar metallicity stars…
Revealing the mechanisms shaping the architecture of planetary systems is crucial for our understanding of their formation and evolution. In this context, it has been recently proposed that stellar clustering might be the key in shaping the…
This proceeding summarises the talk of the awardee of the Spanish Astronomical Society award to the the best Spanish thesis in Astronomy and Astrophysics in the two-year period 2006-2007. The thesis required a tremendous observational…
The discovery of large numbers of young low-mass stars and brown dwarfs over the last decade has made it possible to investigate star formation and early evolution in a previously unexplored mass regime. In this review, we begin by…
Straddling the traditional realms of the planets and the stars, objects below the edge of the main sequence have such unique properties, and are being discovered in such quantities, that one can rightly claim that a new field at the…
Recent studies have shown that close-in brown dwarfs in the mass range 35-55 M$_{\rm Jup}$ are almost depleted as companions to stars, suggesting that objects with masses above and below this gap might have different formation mechanisms.…
It has now been known for over a decade that low-mass stars located in star-forming regions are very frequently members of binary and multiple systems, even more so than main sequence stars in the solar neighborhood. This high multiplicity…
The majority of stars more massive than the Sun is found in binary or multiple star systems and many of them will interact during their evolution. Specific interactions, where progenitors and post-mass transfer (MT) systems are clearly…