Related papers: Starspots on eclipsing giant stars I.: The sample …
With over 1800 planets discovered outside of the Solar System in the past two decades, the field of exoplanetology has broadened our perspective on planetary systems. Research priorities are now moving from planet detection to planet…
Pixel microlensing, i.e. gravitational microlensing of unresolved stars, can be used to explore distant stellar systems, and as a bonus may be able to detect extragalactic planets. In these studies, binary-lens events with multiple…
We have begun a programme to obtain high-precision photometry of bright detached eclipsing binary (dEB) stars with the Wide field InfraRed Explorer (WIRE) satellite. Due to the small aperture of WIRE only stars brighter than V=6 can be…
Debris discs are known to exist around many planet-host stars, but no debris dust has been found so far in systems with transiting planets. Using publicly available catalogues, we searched for infrared excesses in such systems. In the…
We demonstrate that microlensing can be used for detecting planets in binary stellar systems. This is possible because in the geometry of planetary binary systems where the planet orbits one of the binary component and the other binary star…
Stellar activity features such as spots can create complications in determining planetary parameters through spectroscopic and photometric observations. The overlap of a transiting planet and a stellar spot, for instance, can produce…
The large number of exoplanets discovered with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) means that any observational biases from TESS could influence the derived stellar multiplicity statistics of exoplanet host stars. To…
Stellar fundamental properties (masses, radii, effective temperatures) can be extracted from observations of eclipsing binary systems with remarkable precision, often better than 2%. Such precise measurements afford us the opportunity to…
We present a detailed light curve analysis of publicly available V band observations of 62 binary stars, mostly contact binaries, obtained by the All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS)-3 project between 2000 and 2009. Eclipsing binaries are…
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…
Asteroseismology is a powerful tool to measure the fundamental properties of stars and probe their interiors. This is particularly efficient for red giants because their modes are well detectable and give information on their deep layers.…
The idea of finding extrasolar planets (ESPs) through observations of drops in stellar brightness due to transiting objects has been around for decades. It has only been in the last ten years, however, that any serious attempts to find ESPs…
Tidal synchronization plays a fundamental role in the evolution of binary star systems. However, key details such as the timescale of synchronization, efficiency of tidal dissipation, rotational period, and dependence on stellar mass are…
Stellar activity is ubiquitous in late-type stars. The special geometry of eclipsing binary systems is particularly advantageous to study the stellar surfaces and activity. We present a detailed study of the 145 d CoRoT light curve of the…
The formation and dynamical history of hot Jupiters is currently debated, with wide stellar binaries having been suggested as a potential formation pathway. Additionally, contaminating light from both binary companions and unassociated…
We present our second catalog of quadruple star candidates, containing 101 systems discovered in TESS Full-Frame Image data. The targets were initially detected as eclipsing binary stars with the help of supervised machine learning methods…
Transiting planet systems offer an unique opportunity to observationally constrain proposed models of the interiors (radius, composition) and atmospheres (chemistry, dynamics) of extrasolar planets. The spectacular successes of ground-based…
Eclipses and pulsations are the two primary ways in which the physical properties of stars can be deduced and used to improve our understanding of stellar theory. An obvious idea is to combine these two analyses into the study of pulsating…
Russell (1948) famously described eclipses as the "royal road" to stellar astrophysics. From photometric and spectroscopic observations it is possible to measure the masses and radii (to 1% or better!), and thus surface gravities and mean…
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…