Related papers: A Dynamical Method for Measuring Masses of Stars w…
Planetary transits are commonly observed at visible wavelengths. Here we investigate the shape of a planetary transit observed at radio wavelengths. Solar maps of the Sun at 17 GHz are used as a proxy for the stellar eclipse by several…
The properties of a transiting planet's host star are written in its transit light curve. The light curve can reveal the stellar density and the limb darkening profile in addition to the characteristics of the planet and its orbit. For…
Spectroscopic follow-up of dozens of transiting planets has revealed the degree of alignment between the equators of stars and the orbits of the planets they host. Here we determine a method, applicable to spotted stars, that can reveal the…
A detailed understanding of the physics of star and planet formation requires study of individual objects as well as statistical assessment of global properties and evolutionary trends. Observational investigations of circumstellar material…
Main-sequence stars earlier than spectral type ~F6 or so are expected to rotate rapidly due to their radiative exteriors. This rapid rotation leads to an oblate stellar figure. It also induces the photosphere to be hotter (by up to several…
Stellar surface processes represent a fundamental limit to the detection of extrasolar planets with the currently most heavily-used techniques. As such, considerable effort has gone into trying to mitigate the impact of these processes on…
To date, well over a thousand planets have been discovered orbiting other stars, hundreds of them in multi-planet systems. Most of these exoplanets have been detected by either the transit method or the radial velocity method, rather than…
Optical interferometry provides us with a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of stellar structure and evolution. Through direct observation of rotationally distorted photospheres at sub-milliarcsecond scales, we are now able to…
When extrasolar planets are observed to transit their parent stars, we are granted unprecedented access to their physical properties. It is only for transiting planets that we are permitted direct estimates of the planetary masses and…
One of the great challenges in understanding stars is measuring their masses. The best methods for measuring stellar masses include binary interaction, asteroseismology and stellar evolution models, but these methods are not ideal for red…
The detection of exoplanets through direct imaging has produced numerous new positive identifications in recent years. The technique is biased towards planets at wide separations due to the difficulty in removing the stellar signature at…
Transits of bright stars offer a unique opportunity to study detailed properties of extrasolar planets that cannot be determined through radial-velocity observations. We propose a new technique to find such systems using all-sky…
MassSpec, a method for determining the mass of a transiting exoplanet from its transmission spectrum alone, was proposed by \citet{dew13}. The premise of this method relies on the planet's surface gravity being extracted from the…
The mass of a star is the most fundamental parameter for its structure, evolution, and final fate. It is particularly important for any kind of stellar archaeology and characterization of exoplanets. There exists a variety of methods in…
The phenomenon of microlensing has successfully been used to detect extrasolar planets. By observing characteristic, rare deviations in the gravitational microlensing light curve one can discover that a lens is a star--planet system. In…
Future surveys for transiting extrasolar planets, including the space-based mission Kepler (Borucki et al 2003), are expected to detect hundreds of Jovian mass planets and tens of terrestrial mass planets. For many of these newly discovered…
Minor bodies of the solar system can be used to measure the spectrum of the Sun as a star by observing sunlight reflected by their surfaces. To perform an accurate measurement of the radial velocity of the Sun as a star by this method, it…
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 distribution of orbital period ratios of adjacent planets in extra-solar planetary systems discovered by the {\it Kepler} space telescope exhibits a peak near $\sim1.5$--$2$, a long tail of larger period ratios, and a steep drop-off in…
A transiting planet eclipses part of the rotating stellar surface, thereby producing an anomalous Doppler shift of the stellar spectrum. Here I review how this "Rossiter-McLaughlin Effect" can be used to characterize exoplanetary systems.…