Related papers: Upper Limits on Planet Occurrence around Ultracool…
We describe a method of estimating the abundance of short-period extrasolar planets based on the results of a photometric survey for planetary transits. We apply the method to a 21-night survey with the 2.5m Isaac Newton Telescope of…
It has been shown that F, G, and early K dwarf hosts of Neptune-sized planets are not preferentially metal-rich. However, it is less clear whether the same holds for late K and M dwarf planet hosts. We report metallicities of Kepler targets…
We describe a "super-Earth"-size ($2.30\pm0.15R_{\oplus}$) planet transiting an early K-type dwarf star in the Campaign 4 field observed by the K2 mission. The host star, EPIC 210363145, was identified as a member of the approximately…
We report the discovery and the analysis of the short (tE < 5 days) planetary microlensing event, OGLE-2015-BLG-1771. The event was discovered by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE), and the planetary anomaly (at I ~ 19) was…
There is growing evidence that brown dwarfs may be comparable to main-sequence stars in terms of their abundance. In this paper, we explore the prospects for the existence of life on Earth-like planets around brown dwarfs. We consider the…
Given the very close proximity of their habitable zones, brown dwarfs represent high-value targets in the search for nearby transiting habitable planets that may be suitable for follow-up occultation spectroscopy. In this paper we develop…
We carry out an independent search of Kepler photometry for small transiting planets with sizes 0.5--8.0 times that of Earth and orbital periods between 5 and 50 days, with the goal of measuring the fraction of stars harboring such planets.…
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…
With round-the-clock monitoring of galactic bulge microlensing events, the PLANET experiment constrains the abundance and can yield the discovery of planets down to the mass of earth around galactic disk and bulge stars. Data taken until…
Current measurements of planet population as a function of stellar mass show three seemingly contradictory signatures: close-in super-Earths are more prevalent around M dwarfs than FGK dwarfs; inner super-Earths are correlated with outer…
The NASA K2 mission, salvaged from the hardware failures of the Kepler telescope, has continued Kepler's planet-hunting success. It has revealed nearly 500 transiting planets around the ecliptic plane, many of which are the subject of…
We explore the impact of outer stellar companions on the occurrence rate of giant planets detected with radial velocities. We searched for stellar and planetary companions to a volume-limited sample of solar-type stars within 25 pc. Using…
Earth-sized planets were observed in close-in orbits around M dwarfs. While more and more planets are expected to be uncovered around M dwarfs, theories of their formation and dynamical evolution are still in their infancy. We investigate…
The coolest dwarf stars targeted by the Kepler Mission constitute a relatively small but scientifically valuable subset of the Kepler target stars, and provide a high-fidelity and nearby sample of transiting planetary systems. Using…
M dwarf stars, which have masses less than 60 per cent that of the Sun, make up 75 per cent of the population of the stars in the Galaxy [1]. The atmospheres of orbiting Earth-sized planets are observationally accessible via transmission…
Of the > 500 confirmed transiting hot jupiters and approximately 2000 additional candidates today, only ten are known to have nearby companion planets. The survival of nearby companions means that these hot jupiters cannot have migrated to…
We conducted a search for very short-period transiting objects in the publicly available Kepler dataset. Our preliminary survey has revealed four planetary candidates, all with orbital periods less than twelve hours. We have analyzed the…
A feasibility study was carried out at the Astronomical Observatory of the Autonomous Region of the Aosta Valley demonstrating that it is a well-poised site to conduct an upcoming observing campaign aimed at detecting small-size…
We have detected a 12 M$_{\rm Jup}$ planet orbiting in or near the habitable zone of a main-sequence A star via the pulsational phase shifts induced by orbital motion. The planet has an orbital period of $840\pm20$ d and an eccentricity of…
In 2015, K2 observations of the bright (V = 8.9, K = 7.7) star HIP 41378 revealed a rich system of at least five transiting exoplanets, ranging in size from super-Earths to gas giants. The 2015 K2 observations only spanned 74.8 days, and…