Related papers: On constraining a transiting exoplanet's rotation …
The Kepler Mission is monitoring the brightness of ~150,000 stars searching for evidence of planetary transits. As part of the "Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler" (HEK) project, we report a planetary system with two confirmed planets and one…
A planetary transit produces both a photometric signal and a spectroscopic signal. Precise observations of the transit light curve reveal the planetary radius and allow a search for timing anomalies caused by satellites or additional…
A variety of terrestrial planets with different physical parameters and exotic atmospheres might plausibly exist outside our Solar System, waiting to be detected by the next generation of space-exploration missions. Some of these planets…
We have computed evolutionary models for extrasolar planets which range in mass from 0.1 to 3.0 Jovian Masses, and which range in equilibrium temperature from 113 K to 2000 K. We present four sequences of models, designed to show the…
Transiting exoplanets provide detailed access to their atmospheres, as the planet's signal can be effectively separated from that of its host star. For transiting exoplanets three fundamental atmospheric measurements are possible:…
Transit timing variations - deviations from strict periodicity between successive passages of a transiting planet - can be used to probe the structure and dynamics of multiple-planet systems. In this paper, we examine prospects for…
Rapid planetary rotation can cause the equilibrium shape of a planet to be oblate. While planetary oblateness has mostly been probed by examining the subtle ingress and egress features in photometric transit light curves, we investigate the…
We have measured the infrared transit of the extrasolar planet HD209458b using the Spitzer Space Telescope. We observed two primary eclipse events (one partial and one complete transit) using the 24 micron array of the Multiband Imaging…
We propose a method for observing transiting exoplanets with near-infrared high-resolution spectrometers. We aim to create a robust data analysis method for recovering atmospheric transmission spectra from transiting exoplanets over a wide…
The spin-rotation of a planet arises from the accretion of angular momentum during its formation, but the details of this process are still unclear. In the solar system, the equatorial rotation velocities and spin angular momentum of the…
We present a brief summary of observations of the transiting extrasolar planet, HD 209458 b, designed to detect the secondary eclipse. We employ the method of `occultation spectroscopy', which searches in combined light (star and planet)…
Transiting planet lightcurves have historically been used predominantly for measuring the depth and hence ratio of the planet-star radii, p. Equations have been previously presented by Seager & Mallen-Ornelas (2003) for the analysis of the…
We derive improved system parameters for the HD 209458 system using a model that simultaneously fits both photometric transit and radial velocity observations. The photometry consists of previous Hubble Space Telescope STIS and FGS…
Planetary rotation rates and obliquities provide information regarding the history of planet formation, but have not yet been measured for evolved extrasolar planets. Here we investigate the theoretical and observational perspective of the…
We have made a comprehensive transit search for exoplanets down to about 2 Earth radii in the HD 209458 system, based on nearly uninterrupted broadband optical photometry obtained with the MOST (Microvariability and Oscillations of Stars)…
We present a time-dependent radiative model of the atmosphere of HD209458b and investigate its thermal structure and chemical composition. In a first step, the stellar heating profile and radiative timescales were calculated under…
The recent discovery that the close-in extrasolar giant planet, HD209458b, transits its star has provided a first-of-its-kind measurement of the planet's radius and mass. In addition, there is a provocative detection of the light reflected…
We present photometry of HD 189733 during eight transits of its close-in giant planet, and out-of-transit photometry spanning two years. Using the transit photometry, we determine the stellar and planetary radii and the photometric…
We present theoretical wavelength-dependent transit light curves for the giant planet HD209458b based on a number of state of the art 3D radiative hydrodynamical models. By varying the kinematic viscosity in the model we calculate…
Transmission spectroscopy is one of the most successful methods of learning about exoplanet atmospheres. The process of retrievals using transmission spectroscopy consists of creating numerous forward models and comparing them to…