Related papers: Mid-to-Late M Dwarfs Lack Jupiter Analogs
The origin of a recently discovered close-in Neptune-mass planet around GJ436 poses a challenge to the current theories of planet formation. Based on the sequential accretion hypothesis and the standard theory of gap formation and orbital…
We study the resolved stellar populations of dwarf galaxies in the nearby Centaurus A/M83 group of galaxies. Our goal is to characterize their evolutionary history and to investigate eventual similarities or differences with the dwarf…
Direct imaging searches have begun to detect planetary and brown dwarf companions and to place constraints on the presence of giant planets at large separations from their host star. This work helps to motivate such planet searches by…
Understanding the formation and evolution of giant planets ($\ge$1 $M_{Jup}$) at wide orbital separation ($\ge$5 AU) is one of the goals of direct imaging. Over the past 15 years, many surveys have placed strong constraints on the…
Radio astrometry of nearby, low-mass stars has the potential to be a powerful tool for the discovery and characterization of planetary companions. We present a Very Large Array survey of 172 active M dwarfs at distances of less than 10 pc.…
Hot Jupiters form an enigmatic class of object with yet unclear formation pathways. Determination of their occurrence rates as function orbit, planet and stellar mass, and system age, can be an important ingredient for understanding how…
Warm Jupiters -- defined here as planets larger than 6 Earth radii with orbital periods of 8--200 days -- are a key missing piece in our understanding of how planetary systems form and evolve. It is currently debated whether Warm Jupiters…
We present a pattern emerging from stellar obliquity measurements in single-star systems: planets with high planet-to-star mass ratios ($M_{\rm p}/M{_*}$$>$ $2\times10^{-3}$) -- such as super-Jupiters, brown dwarf companions, and M-dwarfs…
The interaction between Earth-like exoplanets and the magnetic field of low-mass host stars are considered to produce weak emission signals at radio frequencies. A study using LOFAR data announced the detection of radio emission from the…
The nominal habitable zone for exoplanets orbiting M dwarfs lies close to the host star, making dynamical considerations especially important. One consequence of this proximity is the expectation of spin synchronization, with implications…
Due to their small radii, M-dwarfs are very promising targets to search for transiting super-Earths, with a planet of 2 Earth radii orbiting an M5 dwarf in the habitable zone giving rise to a 0.5% photometric signal, with a period of two…
M dwarfs have become increasingly important in the detection of exoplanets and the study of Earth-sized planets and their habitability. However, 20-30% of M dwarfs have companions that can impact the formation and evolution of planetary…
We consider the magnetic interaction of exoplanets orbiting M-dwarfs, calculating the expected Poynting flux carried upstream along Alfv\'{e}n wings to the central star. A region of emission analogous to the Io footprint observed in…
The apparent dependence of detection frequency of extrasolar planets on the metallicity of their host stars is investigated with Monte Carlo simulations using a deterministic core-accretion planet formation model. According to this model,…
The nearby M-dwarf AP Col was recently identified by Riedel et al. 2011 as a pre-main sequence star (age 12 - 50 Myr) situated only 8.4 pc from the Sun. The combination of its youth, distance, and intrinsically low luminosity make it an…
We present radial velocity (RV) measurements of our sample of 40 M dwarfs from our planet search programme with VLT+UVES begun in 2000. Although with our RV precision down to 2 - 2.5 m/s and timebase line of up to 7 years, we are capable of…
We have carried out an L' and M band Adaptive Optics (AO) extrasolar planet imaging survey of 54 nearby, sunlike stars using the Clio camera at the MMT. Our survey concentrates more strongly than all others to date on very nearby F, G, and…
Microlensing is sensitive to binary, brown dwarf, and planetary companions to normal stars in the Galactic bulge with separations between about 1-10 AU. The accurate, densely-sampled photometry of microlensing events needed to detect…
M dwarf stars are the most promising hosts for detection and characterization of small and potentially habitable planets, and provide leverage relative to solar-type stars to test models of planet formation and evolution. Using \emph{Gaia}…
We present first results of our planet search program using the 9.2 meter Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory to detect planets around M-type dwarf stars via high-precision radial velocity (RV) measurements. Although more…