Related papers: Detecting Planets in Planetary Nebulae
Despite the recent discoveries of planets orbiting stars at all evolutionary stages, the evolution of planetary systems remains poorly understood. Studying planetary systems around red giant branch stars can reveal how main sequence…
As stars evolve, they undergo significant changes in their physical properties, which can have a profound impact on the planets orbiting them. In particular, the mass lost through stellar wind may be partially accreted by orbiting planets.…
Radio continuum observations trace thermal emission of ionized plasma in planetary nebulae and bring useful information on nebular geometries. A model of homogeneous sphere or shell cannot fit the nebular spectra and brightness…
We present a possible evolutionary pathway to form planetary nebulae (PNe) with close neutron star (NS)-white dwarf (WD) binary central stars. By employing a comprehensive binary population synthesis technique we find that the evolution…
Why 80% of planetary nebulae are not spherical is not yet understood. The Binary Hypothesis states that a companion to the progenitor of the central star of a planetary nebula is required to shape the nebula and even for a planetary nebula…
A number of efforts are underway to detect close binary stars in planetary nebulae. The primary goal of these studies is to determine the binary fraction of central stars. The next stage is a detailed analysis of the binaries to determine…
The increase in discovered close binary central stars of planetary nebulae is leading to a sufficiently large sample to begin to make broader conclusions about the effect of close binary stars on common envelope evolution and planetary…
Of the roughly 3000 neutron stars known, only a handful have sub-stellar companions. The most famous of these are the low-mass planets around the millisecond pulsar B1257+12. New evidence indicates that observational biases could still hide…
Terrestrial planets are more likely to be detected if they orbit M dwarfs due to the favorable planet/star size and mass ratios. However, M dwarf habitable zones are significantly closer to the star than the one around our Sun, which leads…
The study of planets beyond the solar system and the search for other habitable planets and life is just beginning. Ground-based (radial velocity and transits) and space-based surveys (transits and astrometry) will identify planets spanning…
Understanding the formation and dynamical evolution of habitable planets in extrasolar planetary systems is a challenging task. In this respect, systems with multiple giant planets and/or multiple stars present special complications. The…
Planets are built from planetesimals: solids larger than a kilometer which grow by colliding pairwise. Planetesimals themselves are unlikely to form by two-body collisions; sub-km objects have gravitational fields individually too weak, and…
Since various structural components of planetary nebulae manifest themselves differently, a combination of optical, infrared, submm, and radio techniques is needed to derive a complete picture of planetary nebulae. The effects of projection…
The orbital distributions of currently observed extrasolar giant planets allow marginally stable orbits for hypothetical, terrestrial planets. In this paper, we propose that many of these systems may not have additional planets on these…
Searches for planets via gravitational lensing have focused on cases in which the projected separation, a, between planet and star is comparable to the Einstein radius, R_E. This paper considers smaller orbital separations and demonstrates…
Determining planetary habitability is a complex matter, as the interplay between a planet's physical and atmospheric properties with stellar insolation has to be studied in a self consistent manner. Standardized atmospheric models for…
We explore the impact of outer stellar companions on the occurrence rate of giant planets detected with radial velocities. We searched for stellar and planetary companions to a volume-limited sample of solar-type stars within 25 pc. Using…
We argue that all transient searches for planets in globular clusters have a very low detection probability. Planets of low metallicity stars typically do not reside at small orbital separations. The dependance of planetary system…
The search for habitable planets like Earth around other stars fulfils an ancient imperative to understand our origins and place in the cosmos. The past decade has seen the discovery of hundreds of planets, but nearly all are gas giants…
We detect a cold, terrestrial planet in a binary-star system using gravitational microlensing. The planet has low mass (2 Earth masses) and lies projected at $a_{\perp,ph}$ ~ 0.8 astronomical units (AU) from its host star, similar to the…