Related papers: Blue Dots Team Transits Working Group Review
The field of extrasolar planets is still, in comparison with other astrophysical topics, in its infancy. There have been about 300 or so extrasolar planets detected and their detection has been accomplished by various different techniques.…
New discoveries of transiting extrasolar planets are reported weekly. Ground based surveys as well as space borne observatories like CoRoT and Kepler are responsible for filling the statistical voids of planets on distant stellar systems. I…
The derived physical properties of the known transiting extrasolar planetary systems come from a variety of sources, and are calculated using a range of different methods so are not always directly comparable. I present a catalogue of the…
Transits of bright stars offer a unique opportunity to study detailed properties of extrasolar planets that cannot be determined through radial-velocity observations. We propose a new technique to find such systems using all-sky…
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…
I present a review of observational efforts to study known extrasolar planets by methods that are complementary to the radial velocity technique. I describe the current state of attempts to detect and characterize such planets by…
Searching for transits provides a very promising technique for finding close-in extra-solar planets. Transiting planets present the advantage of allowing one to determine physical properties such as mass and radius unambiguously. The…
We analyze the properties of searches devoted to finding planetary transits by observing simple stellar systems, such as globular clusters, open clusters, and the Galactic bulge. We develop the analytic tools necessary to predict the number…
Among other things, studies of the formation and evolution of planetary systems currently draw on two important observational resources: the precise characterization available for planets that transit their parent stars and the frequency…
We present and discuss five candidate exoplanetary systems identified with the Kepler spacecraft. These five systems show transits from multiple exoplanet candidates. Should these objects prove to be planetary in nature, then these five…
With over 1800 planets discovered outside of the Solar System in the past two decades, the field of exoplanetology has broadened our perspective on planetary systems. Research priorities are now moving from planet detection to planet…
The discovery of transiting extrasolar planets has enabled us a number of interesting stduies. Transit photometry reveals the radius and the orbital inclination of transiting planets, and thereby we can learn the true mass and the density…
Unlike hot Jupiters or other gas giants, super-Earths are expected to have a wide variety of compositions, ranging from terrestrial bodies like our own to more gaseous planets like Neptune. Observations of transiting systems, which allow us…
We analyse the respective benefits and drawbacks of ground-based and space-based transit surveys for extrasolar planets. Based on simple but realistic assumptions about the fraction of lower main sequence stars harboring telluric and giant…
Most detected transiting planets have orbits which would fit within the one of Mercury, exposing them to intense stellar irradiation and interactions that significantly alter their properties. In contrast, colder planets with longer orbital…
(Abridged) Space missions to search for exo-planets via the transit method, such as COROT, Eddington and Kepler, will need to address problems associated with the automated and efficient detection of planetary transits in light curves…
Transiting extrasolar planets are extraordinarily valuable for understanding the characteristics and formation of planets, because they are the only exoplanets whose physical and orbital properties can be measured to high precision.…
We investigate the improved detection of extrasolar planets around eclipsing binaries using eclipse minima timing, and extrasolar moons around transiting planets using transit timing, offered by the upcoming COROT (ESA, 2005), Kepler (NASA,…
From simulations of transit observations, it is found that the detectability of extrasolar planets depends only on two parameters: The signal-to-noise ratio during a transit, and the number of data points observed during transits. All other…
The idea of finding extrasolar planets (ESPs) through observations of drops in stellar brightness due to transiting objects has been around for decades. It has only been in the last ten years, however, that any serious attempts to find ESPs…