Related papers: The Kepler Pixel Response Function
Accurate knowledge of the telescope's point spread function (PSF) is essential for the weak gravitational lensing measurements that hold great promise for cosmological constraints. For space telescopes, the PSF may vary with time due to…
Surveys searching for transiting exoplanets have found many more candidates than they have been able to confirm as true planets. This situation is especially acute with the Kepler survey, which has found over 2300 candidates but has…
We present an algorithm to search for the faint spectrum of a second star mixed with the spectrum of a brighter star in high resolution spectra. We model optical stellar spectra as the sum of two input spectra drawn from a vast library of…
The discovery of exoplanets has expanded our understanding of planetary systems and opened new avenues for astronomical research. In this study, we present a machine learning (ML) framework for exoplanet identification using a time-series…
The precise Doppler method for measuring stellar radial velocities (RV) is a fundamental technique in modern astronomy. This method records a star's spectrum and detects periodic Doppler shifts in its spectral features, which indicate the…
The photometric precision, monitoring baselines, and rapid, even sampling rates required by modern satellites designed for detecting the signal of transiting exoplanets are ideally suited to a large number of applications in high-energy…
As a response to the white paper call, we propose to turn Kepler to the South Ecliptic Pole (SEP) and observe thousands of large amplitude variables for years with high cadence in the frame of the Kepler-SEP Mission. The degraded pointing…
A point spread function (PSF) describes the distribution of light for a pure point source in an astronomical image due to the optics of the instrument. An accurate PSF is key for deconvolution, point source photometry and source removal.…
Asteroseismology involves probing the interiors of stars and quantifying their global properties, such as radius and age, through observationsof normal modes of oscillation. The technical requirements for conducting asteroseismology include…
Frontal photopolymerization (FPP) provides a versatile method for the rapid fabrication of solid polymer network materials by exposing photosensitive molecules to light. Dimensional control of structures created by this process is crucial…
Light curve modulations in the sample of Kepler planet candidates allows the disentangling of the nature of the transiting object by photometrically measuring its mass. This is possible by detecting the effects of the gravitational pull of…
Galaxy imaging surveys observe a vast number of objects that are affected by the instrument's Point Spread Function (PSF). Weak lensing missions, in particular, aim at measuring the shape of galaxies, and PSF effects represent an important…
Spectrophotometric stability, which is crucial in the spectral characterization of transiting exoplanets, is affected by photometric variations arising from field-stop loss in space telescopes with pointing jitter or primary mirror…
High resolution imaging is an important tool for follow-up study of exoplanet candidates found via transit detection with the Kepler Mission. We discuss here HST imaging with the WFC3 of 23 stars that host particularly interesting Kepler…
An earlier study of the Kepler Mission noise properties on time scales of primary relevance to detection of exoplanet transits found that higher than expected noise followed to a large extent from the stars, rather than instrument or data…
Studying photometric time series in the frequency domain can serve as a means of detecting rotational modulations, measuring asteroseismic modes and even detecting short-period transiting planets. To our knowledge, there is no prior archive…
We investigate the ellipticity of the point-spread function (PSF) produced by imaging an unresolved source with a telescope, subject to the effects of atmospheric turbulence. It is important to quantify these effects in order to understand…
Direct imaging of exoplanets is limited by bright quasi-static speckles in the point spread function (PSF) of the central star. This limitation can be reduced by subtraction of reference PSF images. We have developed an algorithm to…
The direct imaging of an Earth-like exoplanet will require sub-nanometric wavefront control across large light-collecting apertures, to reject host starlight and detect the faint planetary signal. Current adaptive optics (AO) systems, which…
The WFIRST microlensing mission will measure precise light curves and relative parallaxes for millions of stars, giving it the potential to characterize short-period transiting planets all along the line of sight and into the galactic…