Related papers: A Distant Stellar Companion in the Upsilon Androme…
We present the results of an adaptive optics survey for faint companions among Galactic O-type star systems (V < 8) using the Advanced Electro-Optical System (AEOS) 3.6-meter telescope on Haleakala. We surveyed these O star systems in…
Given the frequency of stellar multiplicity in the solar neighborhood, it is important to study the impacts this can have on exoplanet properties and orbital dynamics. There have been numerous imaging survey projects established to detect…
Context. Though only a handful of extrasolar planets have been discovered via direct imaging, each of these discoveries had tremendous impact on our understanding of planetary formation, stellar formation and cool atmosphere physics. Aims.…
This doctoral thesis studies stellar multiplicity in the solar neighborhood (d < 10 pc) and in systems hosting planets (d < 100 pc). Using data from the Washington Double Star Catalogue, Gaia DR3, and a comprehensive literature review, it…
When an extrasolar planet passes in front of its star (transits), its radius can be measured from the decrease in starlight and its orbital period from the time between transits. Multiple planets transiting the same star reveal more: period…
We searched for and found no higher mass (>3Msun) unbound binary stellar companions to the progenitor of pulsar J1124-5916. There are lower mass candidates, but they all have high probabilities of being false positives. There are no…
The census of stellar and substellar companions of nearby stars is largely incomplete. It is, however, fundamentally important in the understanding of the stellar and planetary formation and evolution mechanisms. We aim to characterize the…
The {\it Kepler} mission has detected thousands of planetary systems with 1-7 transiting planets packed within 0.7~au from their host stars. There is an apparent excess of single-transit planet systems that cannot be explained by transit…
The mass domain where massive extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs lay is still poorly understood. Indeed, not even a clear dividing line between massive planets and brown dwarfs has been established yet. This is partly due to the paucity of…
Exoplanets which are detected using the radial velocity technique have a well-known ambiguity of their true mass, caused by the unknown inclination of the planetary orbit with respect to the plane of the sky. Constraints on the inclination…
At wide separations, planetary-mass and brown dwarf companions to solar type stars occupy a curious region of parameters space not obviously linked to binary star formation or solar-system scale planet formation. These companions provide…
Eta Carinae is considered to be a massive colliding wind binary system with a highly eccentric (e \sim 0.9), 5.54-yr orbit. However, the companion star continues to evade direct detection as the primary dwarfs its emission at most…
Earth mass exoplanets are difficult to detect. The Dispersed Matter Planet Project (DMPP) identifies stars which are likely to host the most detectable low mass exoplanets. The star DMPP-3 (HD 42936) shows signs of circumstellar absorption,…
The pulsar B1620-26 has two companions, one of stellar mass and one of planetary mass. We detected the stellar companion using Hubble Space Telescope observations. The color and magnitude of the stellar companion indicate that it is an…
Kepler-296 is a binary star system with two M-dwarf components separated by 0.2 arcsec. Five transiting planets have been confirmed to be associated with the Kepler-296 system; given the evidence to date, however, the planets could in…
The $\ddot P$ (Backer 1992, Backer et al. 1993, Thorsett et al. 1993) observed for PSR~B1620-26 in the globular cluster M4 is most likely due to external gravitational jerk from a bound companion. Solving for the $\ddot P$ observed,…
The Dispersed Matter Planet Project targets stars with anomalously low Ca II H&K chromospheric emission. High precision, high cadence radial velocity measurements of the F8V star HD 38677 / DMPP-1 reveal four short period planets. DMPP-1…
We discuss two multiple star systems that host known exoplanets: HD 2638 and 30 Ari B. Adaptive optics imagery revealed an additional stellar companion to both stars. We collected multi-epoch images of the systems with Robo-AO and the…
The characterization of multiple stellar systems is an important ingredient for testing current star formation models. Stars are more often found in multiple systems, the more massive they are. A complete knowledge of the multiplicity of…
We report precise Doppler shift measurements of 55 Cancri (G8V) obtained from 1989 to 2002 at Lick Observatory. The velocities reveal evidence for an outer planetary companion to 55 Cancri orbiting at 5.5 AU. The velocities also confirm a…