Related papers: Detecting Transits in Sparsely Sampled Surveys
The probability that an exoplanet transits its host star is high for planets in close orbits, but drops off rapidly for increasing semimajor axes. This makes transit surveys for planets with large semimajor axes orbiting bright stars…
We have developed a new method to improve the transit detection of Earth-sized planets in front of solar-like stars by fitting stellar microvariability by means of a spot model. A large Monte Carlo numerical experiment has been designed to…
We investigate the rate of false planetary transit detection due to blending with eclipsing binaries. Our approach is purely empirical and is based on the analysis of the artificially blended light curves of the eclipsing binary stars in…
We used photometric data from the WASP (Wide-Angle Search for Planets) survey to explore the possibility of detecting eclipses and transit signals of brown dwarfs, gas giants and terrestrial companions in close orbit around white dwarfs. We…
An overview is given of the Permanent All Sky Survey (PASS) project. The primary goal of PASS is the detection of all transiting giant planets in the entire sky, complete for stellar systems of magnitudes ~ 5.5-10.5. Since the sample stars…
We compare potential state-of-the-art experiments for detecting Earth-mass planets around main-sequence stars using radial velocities, transits, astrometry, and microlensing. For conventionally-discussed signal-to-noise ratio (S/N)…
Small planets are extremely common in the Galaxy, including planets with masses and radii between those of Earth and Neptune. Characterizing these planets' masses requires ultra-precise radial velocities. The ESPRESSO spectrograph was…
We present a unique method that allows the LSST to scan the sky for stellar variability on short timescales. The operational component of the strategy requires LSST to take star trail images. The image processing component uses deep…
Transmission spectroscopy of Earth-like exoplanets is a potential tool for habitability screening. Transiting planets are present-day "Rosetta Stones" for understanding extrasolar planets because they offer the possibility to characterize…
We present an algorithm that allows fast and efficient detection of transits, including planetary transits, from light-curves. The method is based on building an ensemble of fiducial models and compressing the data using the MOPED…
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 present first results from the Survey for Transiting Extrasolar Planets in Stellar Systems (STEPSS). Our goal is to assess the frequency of close-in extrasolar planets around main-sequence stars in several open clusters. By concentrating…
A feasibility study was carried out at the Astronomical Observatory of the Autonomous Region of the Aosta Valley demonstrating that it is a well-poised site to conduct an upcoming observing campaign aimed at detecting small-size…
We present design considerations for a ground-based survey for transiting exoplanets around L and T dwarfs, spectral classes that have yet to be thoroughly probed for planets. We simulate photometry for L and T targets with a variety of…
The Wide Field Camera Transit Survey is a pioneer program aimed to search for extra-solar planets in the near-infrared. The standard data reduction pipeline of the program uses aperture photometry to construct the light curves. We…
A large number of direct imaging surveys for exoplanets have been performed in recent years, yielding the first directly imaged planets and providing constraints on the prevalence and distribution of wide planetary systems. However, like…
Of the approximately 350 extrasolar planets currently known, of order 10% orbit evolved stars with radii R >~ 2.5 R_sun. These planets are of particular interest because they tend to orbit more massive hosts, and have been subjected to…
One of the persistent complications in searches for transiting exoplanets is the low percentage of the detected candidates that ultimately prove to be planets, which significantly increases the load on the telescopes used for the follow-up…
Short-period super-Earths and Neptunes are now known to be very frequent around solar-type stars. Improving our understanding of these mysterious planets requires the detection of a significant sample of objects suitable for detailed…
[Abridged] We have only been able to comprehensively characterize the atmospheres of a handful of transiting planets, because most orbit faint stars. TESS will discover transiting planets orbiting the brightest stars, enabling, in…