Related papers: The Kepler Peas in a Pod Pattern is Astrophysical
Kepler allows the measurement of starspot variability in a large sample of field red giants for the first time. With a new method that combines autocorrelation and wavelet decomposition, we measure 361 rotation periods from the full set of…
By design, model-based approaches for flagging transiting exoplanets in light curves, such as boxed least squares, excel at detecting planets with low S/N at the expense of finding signals that are not well described by the assumed model,…
We calculate an empirical, non-parametric estimate of the shape of the period-marginalized radius distribution of planets with periods less than 150 days using the small yet well-characterized sample of cool ($T_{\rm eff} <4000 $K) dwarf…
We constrain the intrinsic architecture of Kepler planetary systems by modeling the observed multiplicities of the transiting planets (tranets) and their transit timing variations (TTVs). We robustly determine that the fraction of Sun-like…
The NASA Kepler mission has revolutionised time-domain astronomy and has massively expanded the number of known extrasolar planets. However, the effect of wide multiplicity on exoplanet occurrence has not been tested with this dataset. We…
The NASA Kepler and K2 Missions have recently revealed a population of transiting giant planets orbiting moderately evolved, low-luminosity red giant branch stars. Here, we present radial velocity measurements of three of these systems,…
We analyze the properties of searches devoted to finding planetary transits by observing simple stellar systems, such as globular clusters, open clusters, and the Galactic bulge. We develop the analytic tools necessary to predict the number…
Recent astronomical observations, in particular from the Kepler and TESS missions and their related follow-ups, have revealed an abundance of exoplanets in the size range between Neptune (4 Earth radii) and Earth (1 Earth radii ), as well…
Asterodensity Profiling (AP) is a relatively new technique for studying transit light curves. By comparing the mean stellar density derived from the transit light curve to that found through some independent method, AP provides information…
We present an improved estimate of the occurrence rate of small planets orbiting small stars by searching the full four-year Kepler data set for transiting planets using our own planet detection pipeline and conducting transit injection and…
We characterize the eccentricity distribution of a sample of ~50 short-period planet candidates using transit and occultation measurements from NASA's Kepler Mission. First, we evaluate the sensitivity of our hierarchical Bayesian modeling…
It is often assumed that the "Kepler dichotomy" -- the apparent excess of planetary systems with a single detected transiting planet in the Kepler catalog -- reflects an intrinsic bimodality in the mutual inclinations of planetary orbits.…
Recent transit surveys have discovered thousands of planetary candidates with directly measured radii, but only a small fraction have measured masses. Planetary mass is crucial in assessing the feasibility of numerous observational…
We examine characteristics of circumbinary orbits in the context of current planet formation scenarios. Analytical perturbation theory predicts the existence of nested circumbinary orbits that are generalizations of circular paths around a…
We present Kepler exoplanet occurrence rates for planets between $0.5-16$ R$_\oplus$ and between $1-400$ days. To measure occurrence, we use a non-parametric method via a kernel density estimator and use bootstrap random sampling for…
Hundreds of substellar companions to solar-type stars will be discovered with the Kepler satellite. Kepler's extreme photometric precision gives access to low-amplitude stellar variability contributed by a variety of physical processes. We…
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered thousands of planetary systems, ~20% of which are found to host multiple transiting planets. This relative paucity (compared to the high fraction of single transiting systems) is postulated to result…
Some theories of planet formation and evolution predict that intermediate-mass stars host more hot Jupiters than Sun-like stars, others reach the conclusion that such objects are very rare. By determining the frequencies of those planets we…
While hundreds of planets have been discovered around field stars, only a few are known in star clusters. To explain the lack of short-period giant planets in globular clusters (GC), such as 47 Tucane and \omega\ Centauri, it has been…
Multi-planetary systems detected by the Kepler mission present an excess of planets close to first-order mean-motion resonances (2:1 and 3:2) but with a period ratio slightly higher than the resonant value. Several mechanisms have been…