Related papers: Exocomets: A spectroscopic survey
The distribution of stellar obliquities provides critical insight into the formation and evolution pathways of exoplanets. In the past decade, it was found that hot stars hosting hot Jupiters are more likely to have high obliquities than…
We explore the multiplicity of exoplanet host stars with high-resolution images obtained with VLT/SPHERE. Two different samples of systems were observed: one containing low-eccentricity outer planets, and the other containing…
Nearby type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), such as SN 2017cbv, are useful events to address the question of what the elusive progenitor systems of the explosions are. Hosseinzadeh et al. (2017) suggested that the early blue excess of the…
Short-orbit gas giant planet formation/evolution mechanisms are still not well understood. One promising pathway to discriminate between mechanisms is to constrain the occurrence rate of these peculiar exoplanets at the earliest stage of…
In this thesis, I explore two topics in exoplanet science. The first is the prevalence of Earth-size planets in the Milky Way Galaxy. To determine the occurrence of planets having different sizes, orbital periods, and other properties, I…
Previous studies showed evidence of a dearth of close-in exoplanets around fast rotators, which can be explained by the combined action of intense tidal and magnetic interactions between planets and their host star. Detecting more…
Discovering and characterizing exoplanets at the outer edge of the transit method's sensitivity has proven challenging owing to geometric biases and the practical difficulties associated with acquiring long observational baselines.…
We present a survey of 41 Kepler Objects of Interest (KOIs) for exomoons using Bayesian photodynamics, more than tripling the number of KOIs surveyed with this technique. We find no compelling evidence for exomoons although thirteen KOIs…
We have recently hit the milestone of 5,000 exoplanets discovered. In stark contrast with the Solar System, most of the exoplanets we know to date orbit extremely close to their host stars, causing them to lose copious amounts of gas…
A photometric survey of three Southern target fields with BEST II yielded the detection of 2,406 previously unknown variable stars and an additional 617 stars with suspected variability. This study presents a catalog including their…
A large number of direct imaging surveys for exoplanets have been performed in recent years, yielding the first directly imaged planets and providing constraints on the prevalence and distribution of wide planetary systems. However, like…
The presence of stellar companions around planet hosting stars influences the architecture of their planetary systems. To find and characterise these companions and determine their orbits is thus an important consideration to understand…
For much of human history we have wondered how our solar system formed, and whether there are any other planets like ours around other stars. Only in the last 20 years have we had direct evidence for the existence of exoplanets, with the…
We search for extragalactic sources in the VISTA Variables in the V\'ia L\'actea survey that are hidden by the Galaxy. Herein, we describe our photometric procedure to find and characterize extragalactic objects using a combination of…
More than 450 exoplanets have currently been detected, most of them by the radial velocity (RV) technique. While the majority of exoplanets have been found around main-sequence (MS) FGK stars (M 1.5M*), only a small fraction (- 10%) have…
Using the new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) on the {\it Hubble Space Telescope (HST)}, we obtained moderate-resolution, high signal/noise ultraviolet spectra of HD 209458 and its exoplanet HD 209458b during transit, both orbital…
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…
As early-type stars with a rotation speed close to their critical velocity, Be stars experience an event called the Be phenomenon. The material in their equator is ejected into outside space during the Be phenomenon and forms a…
We present maps of the 850 micron and 450 micron continuum emission seen towards a sample of 68 high-mass protostellar candidates with luminosities ranging from 10^2.5 to 10^5 solar luminosity. Most of these candidate high-mass stars are in…
(abridged) Context. The origin of hot exozodiacal dust and its connection with outer dust reservoirs remains unclear. Aims. We aim to explore the possible connection between hot exozodiacal dust and warm dust reservoirs (> 100 K) in…