Related papers: Can Planets Influence the Horizontal Branch Morpho…
Astrophysical fluid bodies that orbit close to one another induce tidal distortions and flows that are subject to dissipative processes. The spin and orbital motions undergo a coupled evolution over astronomical timescales, which is…
Globular Cluster (GC) Color-Magnitude Diagrams (CMDs) are reasonably well understood in terms of standard stellar-evolution. However, there are still some open issues, such as fully accounting for the Horizontal Branch (HB) morphology in…
I propose that the relatively high eccentricity found in some tidally strongly interacting binary systems, where the mass-losing star is an evolved giant star, e.g., an asymptotic giant branch star, is caused by an enhanced mass loss rate…
About ten percent of Sun-like ($1$-$2 M_\odot$) stars will engulf a $1$-$10 M_{\rm J}$ planet as they expand during the red giant branch (RGB) or asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase of their evolution. Once engulfed, these planets…
I review some aspects related to the influence of planets on the evolution of stars before and beyond the main sequence. Some processes include the tidal destruction of a planet on to a very young main sequence star, on to a low mass main…
The statistical properties of planets in binaries were investigated. Any difference to planets orbiting single stars can shed light on the formation and evolution of planetary systems. As planets were found around components of binaries…
Asteroid material is detected in white dwarfs (WDs) as atmospheric pollution by metals, in the form of gas/dust discs, or in photometric transits. Within the current paradigm, minor bodies need to be scattered, most likely by planets, into…
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…
Magnetic fields have been detected in most if not all types of stars across the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. Where present, these fields have the potential to significantly impact the evolution of their host stars. Furthermore, they…
The post main-sequence evolution of massive stars is very sensitive to many parameters of the stellar models. Key parameters are the mixing processes, the metallicity, the mass-loss rate and the effect of a close companion. We study how the…
The architecture of exoplanetary systems is often different from the solar system, with some exoplanets being in close orbits around their host stars and having orbital periods of only a few days. In analogy to interactions between stars in…
Understanding the fate of planetary systems through white dwarfs which accrete debris crucially relies on tracing the orbital and physical properties of exo-asteroids during the giant branch phase of stellar evolution. Giant branch…
A gap in exoplanets' radius distribution has been widely attributed to the photo-evaporation threshold of their progenitors' gaseous envelope. Giant impacts can also lead to substantial mass-loss. The outflowing gas endures tidal torque…
In the coming years, high contrast imaging surveys are expected to reveal the characteristics of the population of wide-orbit, massive, exoplanets. To date, a handful of wide planetary mass companions are known, but only one such…
The presence of a nearby companion alters the evolution of massive stars in binary systems, leading to phenomena such as stellar mergers, X-ray binaries and gamma-ray bursts. Unambiguous constraints on the fraction of massive stars affected…
Rotation has a number of important effects on the evolution of stars. It decreases the surface gravity, causes enhanced mass loss and leads to surface abundance anomalies of various chemical isotopes. We have adapted the Cambridge stellar…
We model the evolution of planets with various masses and compositions. We investigate the effects of the composition and its depth dependence on the long-term evolution of the planets. The effects of opacity and stellar irradiation are…
During the post-main sequence evolution massive stars pass through several short-lived phases, in which they experience enhanced mass loss in the form of clumped winds and mass ejection events of unclear origin. The discovery that stars…
Most stars, perhaps even all stars, form in crowded stellar environments. Such star forming regions typically dissolve within ten million years, while others remain bound as stellar groupings for hundreds of millions to billions of years,…
The influence of rotational mixing on the global parameters and asteroseismic properties of red giant stars is reviewed. While red giants are generally characterised by low surface rotational velocities, they may have been rotating much…