Related papers: Primary Velocity and Orbital Phase Effects on Plan…

The most successful method used so far to search for extrasolar planets is the radial velocity technique, where periodical shifts on the measured emission from a star provide evidence for an orbiting planet. This method has been used on…

This paper presents an orbital analysis of six southern single-lined spectroscopic binary systems. The systems selected were shown to have circular or nearly circular orbits (e < 0.1) from earlier published solutions of only moderate…

Detecting and confirming terrestrial planets is incredibly difficult due to their tiny size and mass relative to Sun-like host stars. However, recent instrumental advancements are making the detection of Earth-like exoplanets…

BEBOP is a radial-velocity survey that monitors a sample of single-lined eclipsing binaries, in search of circumbinary planets by using high-resolution spectrographs. Here, we describe and test the methods we use to identify planetary…

We explore the detection limits of the phase modulation (PM) method of finding binary systems among multi-periodic pulsating stars. The method is an attractive way of finding non-transiting planets in the habitable zones of intermediate…

The radial velocity method is amongst the most robust and most established means of detecting exoplanets. Yet, it has so far failed to detect circumbinary planets despite their relatively high occurrence rates. Here, we report velocimetric…

We propose that the presence of additional planets in extrasolar planetary systems can be detected by long-term transit timing studies. If a transiting planet is on an eccentric orbit then the presence of another planet causes a secular…

Short-period exoplanets may exhibit orbital precession driven by several different processes, including tidal interactions with their host stars and secular interactions with additional planets. This motion manifests as periodic shifts in…

Eclipsing binaries are vital for directly determining stellar parameters without reliance on models or scaling relations. Spectroscopically derived parameters of detached and semi-detached binaries allow us to determine component masses…

Accounting for stellar activity is a crucial component of the search for ever-smaller planets orbiting stars of all spectral types. We use Doppler imaging methods to demonstrate that starspot induced radial velocity variability can be…

The four-planet system around GJ 581 has received attention because it has been claimed that there are possibly two additional low-mass companions as well - one of them being a planet in the middle of the stellar habitable zone. We…

Moderately close binaries are a special class of targets for planet searches. From a theoretical standpoint, their hospitality to giant planets is uncertain and debated. From an observational standpoint, many of these systems present…

In the coming decades, research in extrasolar planets aims to advance two goals: 1) detecting and characterizing low-mass planets increasingly similar to the Earth, and 2) improving our understanding of planet formation. We present a new…

Kepler will monitor enough stars that it is likely to detect single transits of planets with periods longer than the mission lifetime. We show that by combining the Kepler photometry of such transits with precise radial velocity (RV)…

Unresolved stellar companions can cause both under-estimations in the radii of transiting planets and over-estimations of their detectability, affecting our ability to reliably measure planet occurrence rates. To quantify the latter, we…

In this paper, we determine the detectability of eclipsing binary star companions from eclipse timing variations using the Kepler mission dataset. Extensive and precise stellar time-series photometry from space-based missions enable…

When studying transiting exoplanets it is common to assume a spherical planet shape. However short rotational periods can cause a planet to bulge at its equator, as is the case with Saturn whose equatorial radius is almost 10% larger than…

We investigated the underlying architecture of planetary systems by deriving the distribution of planet multiplicity (number of planets) and the distribution of orbital inclinations based on the sample of planet candidates discovered by the…

(Abridged) Space missions to search for exo-planets via the transit method, such as COROT, Eddington and Kepler, will need to address problems associated with the automated and efficient detection of planetary transits in light curves…

We present the first results of the application of supervised classification methods to the Kepler Q1 long-cadence light curves of a subsample of 2288 stars measured in the asteroseismology program of the mission. The methods, originally…