Related papers: A Bayesian Kepler Periodogram detects a second pla…
We present new periodograms that are effective in distinguishing Doppler shift from spectral shape variability in astronomical spectra. These periodograms, building upon the concept of partial distance correlation, separate the periodic…
Transiting exoplanets provide access to data to study the mass-radius relation and internal structure of extrasolar planets. Long-period transiting planets allow insight into planetary environments similar to the Solar System where, in…
The recent discovery of a planetary transit in the star HD 209458, and the subsequent highly precise observation of the transit lightcurve with Hubble Space Telescope, is encouraging to search for any phenomena that might induce small…
The Doppler technique measures the reflex radial motion of a star induced by the presence of companions and is the most successful method to detect exoplanets. If several planets are present, their signals will appear combined in the radial…
Before the launch of the Kepler Space Telescope, models of low-mass planet formation predicted that convergent Type I migration would often produce systems of low-mass planets in low-order mean-motion resonances. Instead, Kepler discovered…
Co-orbital planets have not yet been discovered, although they constitute a frequent by-product of planetary formation and evolution models. This lack may be due to observational biases, since the main detection methods are unable to spot…
It is suggested that the distribution of orbital eccentricities for extrasolar planets is well-described by the Beta distribution. Several properties of the Beta distribution make it a powerful tool for this purpose. For example, the Beta…
We report the radial-velocity discovery of a second planetary mass companion to the K0 V star HD 37605, which was already known to host an eccentric, P~55 days Jovian planet, HD 37605b. This second planet, HD 37605c, has a period of ~7.5…
Many real world problems exhibit patterns that have periodic behavior. For example, in astrophysics, periodic variable stars play a pivotal role in understanding our universe. An important step when analyzing data from such processes is the…
We present results from a search for additional transiting planets in 24 systems already known to contain a transiting planet. We model the transits due to the known planet in each system and subtract these models from lightcurves obtained…
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…
The study of multiple extrasolar planetary systems has the opportunity to obtain constraints for the planetary masses and orbital inclinations via the detection of mutual perturbations. The analysis of precise radial velocity measurements…
Planetary systems with multiple transiting planets are beneficial for understanding planet occurrence rates and system architectures. Although we have yet to find a solar system analogue, future surveys may detect multiple terrestrial…
Ground-based observing time is precious in the era of exoplanet follow-up and characterization, especially in high-precision radial velocity instruments. Blind-search radial velocity surveys thus require a dedicated observational strategy…
I describe ongoing work on development of Bayesian methods for exploring periodically varying phenomena in astronomy, addressing two classes of sources: pulsars, and extrasolar planets (exoplanets). For pulsars, the methods aim to detect…
(Abridged) The solar system gas giant planets are oblate due to their rapid rotation. A measurement of the planet's projected oblateness would constrain the planet's rotational period. Planets that are synchronously rotating with their…
It is shown herein that planets with eccentric orbits are more likely to transit than circularly orbiting planets with the same semimajor axis by a factor of (1-e^2)^{-1}. If the orbital parameters of discovered transiting planets are…
With the advent of optical interferometers that will be coming online in the next decade, radial velocity searches for extra-solar planets will be complemented by high angular resolution astrometric measurements. In this paper, we explore…
The astrometric and radial velocity techniques of extra-solar planet detection attempt to detect the periodic reflex motion of the parent star by extracting this periodic signal from a time-sampled set of observations. The extraction is…
To date a dozen transiting "Tatooines" or circumbinary planets (CBPs) have been discovered, by eye, in the data from the Kepler mission; by contrast, thousands of confirmed circumstellar planets orbiting around single stars have been…