Related papers: Directly testing gravity with Proxima Centauri
The release of Gaia catalog is revolutionary to the astronomy of solar system objects. After some effects such as atmospheric refraction and CCD geometric distortion have been taken into account, the astrometric precision for ground-based…
Magnetically active stars possess stellar winds whose interaction with planetary magnetic fields produces radio auroral emission. We examine the detectability of radio auroral emission from Proxima b, the closest known exosolar planet…
We present results from the search for astrometric accelerations of stars in $\omega$ Centauri using 13 years of regularly-scheduled {\it Hubble Space Telescope} WFC3/UVIS calibration observations in the cluster core. The high-precision…
High precision differential Astrometry is the branch of astronomy that evaluates the relative position, distance and motion of celestial objects with respect to the stars present in the field of view. A mission called Theia has been…
The exploration of the low acceleration $a<a_{0}$ regime, where $a_{0}=1.2 \times 10^{-10}$m s$^{-2}$ is the acceleration scale of MOND around which gravitational anomalies at galactic scale appear, has recently been extended to the much…
We test Milgromian dynamics (MOND) using wide binary stars (WBs) with separations of $2-30$ kAU. Locally, the WB orbital velocity in MOND should exceed the Newtonian prediction by $\approx 20\%$ at asymptotically large separations given the…
Extremely wide binary stars represent ideal systems to probe Newtonian dynamics in the low acceleration regimes (<10e-10 m/s/s) typical of the external regions of galaxies. Here we present a study of 60 alleged wide binary stars with…
With the example of Proxima Centauri we discuss the feasibility of detecting terrestrial planets (1 to a few M_Earth) using the high precision radial velocity (RV) technique. If a very high RV precision for M stars is achieved even planets…
Stellar kinematics in the external regions of globular clusters can be used to probe the validity of Newton's law in the low acceleration regimes without the complication of non-baryonic dark matter. Indeed, in contrast with what happens…
Due to its relatively large eccentricity and proximity to the Sun, Mercury's orbital motion provides one of the best solar-system tests of relativistic gravity. We emphasize the number of feasible relativistic gravity tests that can be…
The discovery of a planet orbiting around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, opens new avenues for the remote observations of the atmosphere and surface of an exoplanet, Proxima b. To date, three-dimensional (3D) General…
Recent studies have shown that alpha Centauri B might be, from an observational point of view, an ideal candidate for the detection of an Earth-like planet in or near its habitable zone (0.5-0.9AU). We study here if such habitable planets…
Due to its Earth-like minimum mass of 1.27 M$_{\text{E}}$ and its close proximity to our Solar system, Proxima Centauri b is one of the most interesting exoplanets for habitability studies. Its host star, Proxima Centauri, is however a…
Wide-binary stars, separated by thousands of AU, reside in low-acceleration regimes where Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) predicts deviation from Newtonian gravity. However, Gaia radial velocities (RVs) lack the precision to resolve the…
The Alpha Centauri AB system is an attractive one for radial velocity observations to detect potential exoplanets. The high metallicity of both Alpha Centauri A and B suggest that they could have possessed circumstellar discs capable of…
At a distance of 1.295 parsecs, the red-dwarf Proxima Centauri ($\alpha$ Centauri C, GL 551, HIP 70890, or simply Proxima) is the Sun's closest stellar neighbor and one of the best studied low-mass stars. It has an effective temperature of…
Astrometric measurements are presented for seven nearby stars with previously detected planets: six M dwarfs (GJ 317, GJ 667C, GJ 581, GJ 849, GJ 876, and GJ 1214) and one K dwarf (BD $-$10 3166). Measurements are also presented for six…
The standard LambdaCDM model based on General Relativity (GR) including cold dark matter (CDM) is very successful at fitting cosmological observations, but recent non-detections of candidate dark matter (DM) particles mean that various…
The class of transiting cold Jupiters, orbiting at $\gtrsim0.5-1.0$ au, is to-date underpopulated. Probing their atmospheric composition and physical characteristics is particularly valuable, as it allows for direct comparisons with the…
A projected mass estimator and a maximum likelihood estimator are developed to best determine the mass of stellar clusters from proper motion data. Both methods effectively account and correct for errors in the velocities, and provide an…