Related papers: High Precision Astrometry with Adaptive Optics aid…
Among the group of extrasolar planets, transiting planets provide a great opportunity to obtain direct measurements for the basic physical properties, such as mass and radius of these objects. These planets are therefore highly important in…
The direct observation of cold and temperate planets within 1 to 10 AU would be extremely valuable for uncovering their atmospheric compositions but remains a formidable challenge with current astronomical methods. Ground-based optical…
Even though the technology of adaptive optics (AO) is rapidly maturing, calibration of the resulting images remains a major challenge. The AO point-spread function (PSF) changes quickly both in time and position on the sky. In a typical…
Object cross-identification in multiple observations is often complicated by the uncertainties in their astrometric calibration. Due to the lack of standard reference objects, an image with a small field of view can have significantly…
Binaries are typically excluded from direct imaging exoplanet surveys. However, the recent findings of Kepler and radial velocity programs show that planets can and do form in binary systems. Here, we suggest that visual binaries offer…
With the advent of optical interferometers that will be coming online in the next decade, radial velocity searches for extra-solar planets will be complemented by high angular resolution astrometric measurements. In this paper, we explore…
Direct imaging of brown dwarfs as companions to solar-type stars can provide a wealth of well-constrained data to "benchmark" the physics of such objects, since quantities like metallicity and age can be determined from their well-studied…
A new generation of telescopes with mirror diameters of 20 m or more, called extremely large telescopes (ELTs) has the potential to provide unprecedented imaging and spectroscopy of exo-planetary systems, if the difficulties in achieving…
The photometric light curves of BRITE satellites were examined through a machine learning technique to investigate whether there are possible exoplanets moving around nearby bright stars. Focusing on different transit periods, several…
The probability of the detection of Earth-like exoplanets may increase in the near future after the launch of the space missions using the transit photometry as observation method. By using this technique only the semi-major axis of the…
Direct detection and detailed characterization of exoplanets using extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) is a key science goal of future extremely large telescopes (ELTs). However, wavefront errors will limit the sensitivity of this endeavor.…
Adding an independent estimate of the mean stellar density, $\rho_{\star}$, as a constraint in the analysis of stars that host transiting exoplanets can significantly improve the precision of the planet radius estimate in cases where the…
With the discovery of the first transiting extrasolar planetary system back to 1999, a great number of projects started to hunt for other similar systems. Because of the incidence rate of such systems was unknown and the length of the…
The challenges of high contrast imaging (HCI) for detecting exoplanets for both ground and space applications can be met with extreme adaptive optics (ExAO), a high-order adaptive optics system that performs wavefront sensing (WFS) and…
At optical wavelengths, an exoplanet's signature is essentially reflected light from the host star - several orders of magnitude fainter. Since it is superimposed on the star spectrum its detection has been a difficult observational…
One of the top remaining science challenges in astronomical optics is the direct imaging and characterization of extrasolar planets and planetary systems. Directly imaging exoplanets from ground-based observatories requires combining…
Absolute astrometry with Gaia is expected to detect and characterize the orbits of thousands of exoplanets in the coming years. A tool, GaiaPMEX, was recently developed to characterize multiple systems based on Gaia-only data, and, when…
Several astronomical surveys aimed at the investigation of the extragalactic components were carried out in order to map systematically the universe and its constituents. An excellent level of detail is needed, and it is possible only using…
We describe work in progress by a collaboration of astronomers and statisticians developing a suite of Bayesian data analysis tools for extrasolar planet (exoplanet) detection, planetary orbit estimation, and adaptive scheduling of…
Future space telescopes will directly image extrasolar planets at visible wavelengths. Time-resolved reflected light from an exoplanet encodes information about atmospheric and surface inhomogeneities. Previous research has shown that the…