Related papers: Effect of stellar spots on high-precision transit …
Planetary rings produce a distinct shape distortion in transit lightcurves. However, to accurately model such lightcurves the observations need to cover the entire transit, especially ingress and egress, as well as an out-of-transit…
During microlensing events with a small impact parameter, the amplification of the source flux is sensitive to the surface brightness distribution of the source star. Such events provide a means for studying the surface structure of target…
The orbital parameters of extra-solar planets have a significant impact on the probability that the planet will transit the host star. This was recently demonstrated by the transit detection of HD 17156b whose favourable eccentricity and…
Our aim in this paper is to refine the orbital and physical parameters of the HATS-2 planetary system and study transit timing variations and atmospheric composition thanks to transit observations that span more than ten years and that were…
The light curve of an exoplanetary transit can be used to estimate the planetary radius and other parameters of interest. Because accurate parameter estimation is a non-analytic and computationally intensive problem, it is often useful to…
[ABRIDGED] Since the discovery of the first transiting extrasolar planet, transit timing has been recognized as a powerful method to discover and characterize additional planets in these systems. However, the gravitational influence of…
We quantify the systematic impact of the non-spherical shape of transiting planets and brown dwarfs, due to tidal forces and rotation, on the observed transit depth. Such a departure from sphericity leads to a bias in the derivation of the…
The light curve of an exoplanetary transit can be used to estimate the planetary radius and other parameters of interest. Because accurate parameter estimation is a non-analytic and computationally intensive problem, it is often useful to…
A transiting extrasolar planet sequentially blocks off the light coming from the different parts of the disk of the host star in a time dependent manner. Due to the spin of the star, this produces an asymmetric distortion in the line…
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…
We developed a dedicated statistical test for a massive detection of spot- and facula-crossing anomalies in multiple exoplanetary transit lightcurves, based on the frequentist $p$-value thresholding. This test was used to augment our…
With the advent of space-based precision photometry missions the quantity and quality of starspot light curves has greatly increased. This paper presents a large number of starspot models and their resulting light curves to: 1) better…
Rapid planetary rotation can cause the equilibrium shape of a planet to be oblate. While planetary oblateness has mostly been probed by examining the subtle ingress and egress features in photometric transit light curves, we investigate the…
Aims: Stellar activity may complicate the analysis of high-precision radial-velocity spectroscopic data when looking for exoplanets signatures. We aim at quantifying the impact of stellar spots on stars with various spectral types and…
In recent years, analyses of eclipsing binary systems have unveiled differences between the observed fundamental properties of low-mass stars and those predicted by stellar structure models. Particularly, radius and effective temperatures…
A unique analytical solution of planet and star parameters can be derived from an extrasolar planet transit light curve under a number of assumptions. This analytical solution can be used to choose the best planet transit candidates for…
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…
Future high precision photometric measurements of transiting extrasolar planets promise to tell us much about the nature of these systems. We examine how atmospheric lensing and (projected) planet oblateness/ellipticity modify transit light…
The detection of small mass planets with the radial-velocity technique is now confronted with the interference of stellar noise. HARPS can now reach a precision below the meter-per-second, which corresponds to the amplitudes of different…
Statistical analyses of large surveys for transiting planets such as the Kepler mission must account for systematic errors and biases. Transit detection depends not only on the planet's radius and orbital period, but also on host star…