Related papers: Testing the mirror world hypothesis for the close-…

A rapidly growing body of observational results suggests that planet formation takes place preferentially at high metallicity. In the core accretion model of planet formation this is expected because heavy elements are needed to form the…

Several planets have recently been discovered around old metal-poor stars, implying that these planets are also old, formed in the early Universe. The canonical theory suggests that the conditions for their formation could not have existed…

The large eccentricities of many giant extrasolar planets may represent the endpoint of gravitational scattering in initially more crowded systems. If so, the early evolution of the giant planets is likely to be more restrictive of…

Analyses of exoplanet statistics suggest a trend of giant planet occurrence with host star mass, a clue to how planets like Jupiter form. One missing piece of the puzzle is the occurrence around late K dwarf stars (masses of 0.5-0.75Msun…

Gas giants orbiting interior to the ice line are thought to have been displaced from their formation locations by processes that remain debated. Here we uncover several new metallicity trends, which together may indicate that two competing…

We calculate a new suite of albedo models for close-in extrasolar giant planets and compare with the recent stringent upper limit for HD 209458b of Rowe et al. using MOST. We find that all models without scattering clouds are consistent…

We revisit the possibility of detecting an extrasolar planet around a background star as it crosses the fold caustic of a foreground binary lens. During such an event, the planet's flux can be magnified by a factor of ~100 or more. The…

Extrasolar planets that pass in front of their host star (transit) cause a temporary decrease in the apparent brightness of the star once per orbit, providing a direct measure of the planet's size and orbital period. In some systems with…

Some low-mass planets are expected to be ejected from their parent planetary systems during early stages of planetary system formation. According to planet-formation theories, such as the core accretion theory, typical masses of ejected…

The majority of the transiting planets discovered by the Kepler mission (called super-Earths here, includes the so-called 'sub-Neptunes') orbit close to their stars. As such, photoevaporation of their hydrogen envelopes etch sharp features…

We show that planet formation via both gravitational collapse and core accretion is unlikely to occur in equal mass binary systems with moderate (~ 50 AU) semi-major axes. Internal thermal energy generation in the disks is sufficient to…

Atmospheres of transiting extrasolar giant planets (EGPs) such as HD 209458 b must impose features on the spectra of their parent stars during transits; these features contain information about the physical conditions and chemical…

The anomalously large radii of strongly irradiated exoplanets have remained a major puzzle in astronomy. Based on a 2D steady state atmospheric circulation model, the validity of which is assessed by comparison to 3D calculations, we reveal…

We employ planetary evolution modeling to reproduce the MR distribution of the 198 so far detected planets with mass and radius measured to the <45% and <15% level, respectively, and less massive than 108Me. We simultaneously account for…

In recent years a paradigm shift has occurred in exoplanet science, wherein low-mass stars are increasingly viewed as a foundational pillar of the search for potentially habitable worlds in the solar neighborhood. However, the formation…

We plan to take advantage of the unprecedented combination of low thermal background and high resolution provided by the 6.5m MMT's adaptive secondary mirror, to target the 3-5 micron atmospheric window where giant planets are expected to…

The interior composition of exoplanets is not observable, limiting our direct knowledge of their structure, composition, and dynamics. Recently described observational trends suggest that rocky exoplanets, that is, planets without…

Microlensing detections of cool planets are important for the construction of an unbiased sample to estimate the frequency of planets beyond the snow line, which is where giant planets are thought to form according to the core accretion…

Hot Jupiters are a class of extrasolar planet that orbit their parent stars at very short distances. Due to their close proximity, they are expected to be tidally locked, which can lead to a large temperature difference between their day…

We present the discovery of a planet on a very wide orbit in the microlensing event OGLE-2012-BLG-0838. The signal of the planet is well separated from the main peak of the event and the planet-star projected separation is found to be twice…