Related papers: Orbital migration and the brown dwarf desert
Transit and radial velocity observations indicate a dearth of sub-Jupiter--mass planets on short-period orbits, outlined roughly by two oppositely sloped lines in the period--mass plane. We interpret this feature in terms of…
We study the orbital evolution of eccentric binary neutron stars. The orbit is described as a Quasi-Keplarian orbit with perturbations due to tidal couplings. We find that the tidal interaction between stars contributes to orbital…
Over time, tides synchronize the rotation periods of stars in a binary system to the orbital period. However, if the star exhibits differential rotation then only a portion of it can rotate at the orbital period, so the rotation period at…
Some short-period, detached binary systems have recently been reported to experience very rapid orbital decay, much faster than is expected from the angular-momentum loss caused by gravitational radiation alone. As these systems contain…
Nearly half of the exoplanets found within binary star systems reside in very wide binaries with average stellar separations beyond 1,000 AU (1 AU being the Earth-Sun distance), yet the influence of such distant binary companions on…
The presence of ``Hot Jupiters'', Jovian mass planets with very short orbital periods orbiting nearby main sequence stars, has been proposed to be primarily due to the orbital migration of planets formed in orbits initially much further…
We present detailed structure and evolution calculations for the first transiting extrasolar planets discovered by the space-based CoRoT mission. Comparisons between theoretical and observed radii provide information on the internal…
We consider the effects of mutual transits by extrasolar planet-companion systems (in a true binary or a planet-satellite system) on light curves. We show that induced changes in light curves depend strongly on a ratio between a…
Compact binaries with orbital periods shorter than about 7 days show an absence of transiting planets, a feature known as the ``circumbinary planet desert". The physical mechanism behind this desert remains unclear. We investigate its…
Planetary material accreted by white dwarfs provides unique insights regarding exoplanetary composition. The evolutionary pathways of planetary bodies around white dwarfs are crucial to understanding the presence of close-in planetary…
I review some possible processes by which planets and brown dwarfs can influence the evolution of their parent evolved stars. As sun-like stars evolve on the red giant branch (RGB) and then on the asymptotic giant branch (AGB), they will…
Binary systems consisting of a white dwarf and a main-sequence companion with orbital periods up to $\approx 100$ d are often thought to be formed through common envelope evolution which is still poorly understood. To provide new…
The lowest-mass stars, brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets present challenges and opportunities for understanding dynamics and cloud formation processes in low-temperature atmospheres. For brown dwarfs, the formation, variation and rapid…
Planets orbiting a planetesimal circumstellar disc can migrate inward from their initial positions because of dynamical friction between planets and planetesimals. The migration rate depends on the disc mass and on its time evolution.…
We recommend that the search for exoplanets around binary stars be extended to include X-ray binaries in which the accretor is a white dwarf, neutron star, or black hole. We present a novel idea for detecting planets bound to such mass…
Nearly every star known to host planets will become a white dwarf, and nearly 100 planet-hosts are now known to be accompanied by binary stellar companions. Here, we determine how a binary companion triggers instability in otherwise…
We describe a high-precision Doppler search for giant planets orbiting a well-defined sample of metal-poor dwarfs in the field. This experiment constitutes a fundamental test of theoretical predictions which will help discriminate between…
Understanding stellar evolution and its effect on planetary systems is crucial for correctly interpreting the chemical constraints of exo-planetary material that can be given to us by white dwarfs. This article will describe how asteroids,…
The existence of millisecond pulsars with planet-mass companions (Bailes et al., 2011) in close orbits is challenging from the stellar evolution point of view. We calculate in detail the evolution of binary systems self-consistently,…
Recent studies have shown that close-in brown dwarfs in the mass range 35-55 M$_{\rm Jup}$ are almost depleted as companions to stars, suggesting that objects with masses above and below this gap might have different formation mechanisms.…