Related papers: Utilizing Astrometric Orbits to Obtain Coronagraph…
While building up a catalog of Earth orbiting objects, if the available optical observations are sparse, not deliberate follow ups of specific objects, no orbit determination is possible without previous correlation of observations obtained…
The astrometric and radial velocity techniques of extra-solar planet detection attempt to detect the periodic reflex motion of the parent star by extracting this periodic signal from a time-sampled set of observations. The extraction is…
Direct imaging surveys for exoplanets commonly exclude binary stars from their target lists, leaving a large part of the overall planet demography unexplored. To address this gap in our understanding of planet formation and evolution, we…
Machine learning, and eventually true artificial intelligence techniques, are extremely important advancements in astrophysics and astronomy. We explore the application of deep learning using neural networks in order to automate the…
To understand the frequency, and thus the formation and evolution, of planetary systems like our own solar system, it is critical to detect Jupiter-like planets in Jupiter-like orbits. For long-term radial-velocity monitoring, it is useful…
(abridged) We present results from a detailed set of end-to-end numerical simulations of SIM narrow-angle astrometric measurements and data analysis to illustrate the enormous potential that SIM has for the discovery and characterization of…
Time-resolved photometry of asteroids can be used for shape and spin reconstruction. If the number of measurements per asteroid is not sufficient to create a model, the whole data set can be used to reconstruct the distribution of shape…
Improved photometric sensitivity from space-based telescopes have enabled the detection of phase variations for a small sample of hot Jupiters. However, exoplanets in highly eccentric orbits present unique opportunities to study the effects…
Astrometry is less sensitive to stellar activity than the radial velocity technique when attempting to detect Earth mass planets in the habitable zone of solar-type stars. This is due to a smaller number of physical processes affecting the…
Detecting exoplanets and other faint sources of emitted and reflected light near a bright star requires deeply suppressing the starlight while efficiently transmitting the dim light from its surroundings. This suppression can be carried out…
The proposed global astrometry mission {\it GAIA}, recently recommended within the context of ESA's Horizon 2000 Plus long-term scientific program, appears capable of surveying the solar neighborhood within $\sim$ 200 pc for the astrometric…
The large number of new planets expected from wide-area transit surveys means that follow-up transmission spectroscopy studies of their atmospheres will be limited by the availability of telescope assets. We argue that telescopes covering a…
The presence of a body in an orbit around a close eclipsing binary star manifests itself through the light time effect influencing the observed times of eclipses as the close binary and the circumbinary companion both move around the common…
We propose a coronagraphic system with fourth-order null for off-axis segmented telescopes, which is sufficiently insensitive to the telescope pointing errors and finite angular diameter of the host star to enable high-contrast imaging of…
We propose and evaluate the feasibility of a new strategy to search for planets via microlensing observations. This new strategy is designed to detect planets in "wide" orbits, i.e., with orbital separation, a, greater than ~1.5 R_E.…
We present a procedure for determination of positions and orbital elements, and associated uncertainties, of outer Solar System planets. The orbit-fitting procedure is greatly streamlined compared to traditional methods because acceleration…
It is difficult to discover pulsars via their gamma-ray emission because current instruments typically detect fewer than one photon per million rotations. This creates a significant computing challenge for isolated pulsars, where the…
Knowledge of the orbits of visual binary stars has always been one of the fundamentals of astronomy. Based historically on the visual measures, nowadays the orbits rely more (or exclusively) on the accurate speckle data. This prompts…
Currently, over forty transiting planets have been discovered by ground-based photometric surveys, and space-based missions like Kepler and CoRoT are expected to detect hundreds more. Follow-up photometric observations from the ground will…
The irregular satellites of the giant planets are believed to have been captured during the evolution of the solar system. Knowing their physical parameters, such as size, density, and albedo is important for constraining where they came…