Related papers: Using Kepler transit observations to measure stell…
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…
Kepler will monitor enough stars that it is likely to detect single transits of planets with periods longer than the mission lifetime. We show that by combining the Kepler photometry of such transits with precise radial velocity (RV)…
The photospheric spot activity of some of the stars with transiting planets discovered by the CoRoT space experiment is reviewed. Their out-of-transit light modulations are fitted by a spot model previously tested with the total solar…
Context. Kepler-17 is a G2V sun-like star accompanied by a transiting planet with a mass of ~2.5 Jupiter masses and an orbital period of 1.486 d, recently discovered by the Kepler space telescope. This star is highly interesting as a young…
The latitudinal distribution of starspots deviates from the solar pattern with increasing rotation rate. Numerical simulations of magnetic flux emergence and transport can help model the observed stellar activity patterns and the associated…
High-quality time series provided by space instrumentation such as CoRoT and Kepler, allow us to measure modulations in the light curves due to changes in the surface of stars related to rotation and activity. Therefore, we are able to…
The Kepler Mission seeks to detect Earth-size planets transiting solar-like stars in its ~115 deg^2 field of view over the course of its 3.5 year primary mission by monitoring the brightness of each of ~156,000 Long Cadence stellar targets…
The increasing number of transiting exoplanets sparked a significant interest in discovering their moons. Most of the methods in the literature utilize timing analysis of the raw light curves. Here we propose a new approach for the direct…
Transits of exoplanets across cool stars contain blended information about structures on the stellar surface and about the planetary body and atmosphere. To advance understanding of how this information is entangled, a surface-flux…
Spectroscopic follow-up of dozens of transiting planets has revealed the degree of alignment between the equators of stars and the orbits of the planets they host. Here we determine a method, applicable to spotted stars, that can reveal the…
The amplitude and morphology of light curves of solar-like stars change substantially with increasing rotation rate: brightness variations get amplified and become more regular, which has so far not been explained. We develop a modelling…
A planetary transit produces both a photometric signal and a spectroscopic signal. Precise observations of the transit light curve reveal the planetary radius and allow a search for timing anomalies caused by satellites or additional…
Stellar variability induce by starspots can hamper the detection of exoplanets and bias planet property estimations. These features can also be used to study star-planet interactions as well as inferring properties from the underlying…
Since the discovery of the first exoplanets, those most adequate for life to begin and evolve have been sought. Due to observational bias, however, most of the discovered planets so far are gas giants, precluding their habitability.…
The properties of a transiting planet's host star are written in its transit light curve. The light curve can reveal the stellar density and the limb darkening profile in addition to the characteristics of the planet and its orbit. For…
Main-sequence stars earlier than spectral type ~F6 or so are expected to rotate rapidly due to their radiative exteriors. This rapid rotation leads to an oblate stellar figure. It also induces the photosphere to be hotter (by up to several…
The study of young Sun-like stars is of fundamental importance to understand the magnetic activity and rotational evolution of the Sun. Space-borne photometry by the Kepler telescope provides unprecedented datasets to investigate these…
Observations of very low-mass stars with Kepler represent an excellent opportunity to search for planetary transits and to characterize optical photometric variability at the cool end of the stellar mass distribution. In this paper, we…
Stellar surface processes represent a fundamental limit to the detection of extrasolar planets with the currently most heavily-used techniques. As such, considerable effort has gone into trying to mitigate the impact of these processes on…
Stellar rotation is crucial for studying stellar evolution since it provides information about age, angular momentum transfer, and magnetic fields of stars. In the case of the Sun, due to its proximity, detailed observation of sunspots at…