This book explores the relations between physical parameters of
extrasolar planets and their respective parent stars. Planetary
parameters are often directly dependent upon their stellar counterparts.
In addition, the star is almost always the only visible component of the
system and contains most of the system mass. Consequently, the parent
star heavily influences every aspect of planetary physics and
astrophysics. Drs. Kaspar von Braun and Tabetha Boyajian use direct
methods to characterize exoplanet host starts that minimize the number
of assumptions needed to be made in the process.
The book provides a background on interferometric techniques for stellar
diameter measurements, illustrates the authors' approach on using
additional data to fully characterize the stars, provides a
comprehensive update on the current state of the field, and examines in
detail a number of historically significant and well-studied
exoplanetary systems.