Related papers: Southern massive stars at high angular resolution.…
We present the first results of a project, LSD, aimed at obtaining spatially-resolved, near-infrared spectroscopy of a complete sample of Lyman-Break Galaxies at z~3. Deep observations with adaptive optics resulted in the detection of the…
We provide a technique for resolving intermediate-separation binaries stars with medium-sized telescopes (i.e. diameter less than or equal to 2.5 m) at wavelengths around 825 nm in the super-resolution range (i.e. below the limit defined by…
The direct images of giant extrasolar planets recently obtained around several main sequence stars represent a major step in the study of planetary systems. These high-dynamic range images are among the most striking results obtained by the…
OH megamasers (OHMs) are rare, luminous masers found in gas-rich major galaxy mergers. In untargeted neutral hydrogen ($\mathrm{HI}$) emission-line surveys, spectroscopic redshifts are necessary to differentiate the $\lambda_\text{rest}=18$…
The masses of compact objects like white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes are fundamental to astrophysics, but very difficult to measure. We present the results of an analysis of subluminous B (sdB) stars in close binary systems with…
(abridged) Context. Wide binaries are a potential pathway for the formation of hot Jupiters. The binary fraction among host stars is an important discriminator between competing formation theories, but has not been well characterised.…
How important is an independent diameter measurement for the determination of stellar parameters of solar-type stars? When coupled with seismic observables, how well can we determine the stellar mass? If we can determine the radius of the…
Young intermediate-mass stars have become high-priority targets for direct-imaging planet searches following the recent discoveries of planets orbiting e.g. HR 8799 and Beta Pictoris. Close stellar companions to these stars can affect the…
We summarize the status of our program of near-infrared adaptive optics observations of ultracompact HII regions. By means of selected results we demonstrate the usefulness of this technique for disentangling the complexity of massive…
We conduct a statistical analysis of a combined sample of direct imaging data, totalling nearly 250 stars. The stars cover a wide range of ages and spectral types, and include five detections ($\kappa$ And b, two $\sim$60 M$_{\rm J}$ brown…
The bright maser emission produced by several molecular species at centimeter to long millimeter wavelengths provides an essential tool for understanding the process of massive star formation. Unimpeded by the high dust optical depths that…
Luminous stars in background galaxies straddling the lensing caustic of a foreground galaxy cluster can be individually detected due to extreme magnification factors of $\sim 10^2$--$10^3$, as recently observed in deep HST images. We…
We describe an astrometric and spectroscopic campaign to confirm the youth and association of a complete sample of candidate wide companions in Taurus and Upper Sco. Our survey found fifteen new binary systems (3 in Taurus and 12 in Upper…
Abridged: We have used the well-selected sample of ~1750 embedded, young, massive stars identified by the RMS survey to investigate the Galactic distribution of recent massive star formation. We describe the various methods used to assign…
We report on our analysis of HST/NICMOS snapshot high resolution images of 255 stars in 201 systems within ~10 parsecs of the Sun. Photometry was obtained through filters F110W, F180M, F207M, and F222M using NICMOS Camera 2. These filters…
The physics of the outer layers of a star are not well understood but these layers make a major contribution to the large separation. We quantify this using stellar models and show that the contribution ranges from 6\% from the outer 0.1\%…
The sensitivity of radial velocity (RV) surveys for exoplanet detection are extending to increasingly long orbital periods, where companions with periods of several years are now being regularly discovered. Companions with orbital periods…
We present the first search for binary companions of Massive Young Stellar Objects (MYSOs) using AO-assisted $K$ band observations, with NaCo at the VLT. We have surveyed 32 MYSOs from the RMS catalogue, probing the widest companions, with…
(Abridged) Our aim is to identify analogues of gas giant planets, as companions at wide separations of very young stars. To identify these objects, we cross correlated the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA)…
The distribution of multiplicity among low-mass stars is a key issue to understanding the formation of stars and brown dwarfs, and recent surveys have yielded large enough samples of nearby low-mass stars to study this issue statistically…