Related papers: Effect of stellar spots on high-precision transit …

Stellar surface heterogeneities, such as spots and faculae, often contaminate exoplanet transit spectra, hindering precise atmospheric characterization. We demonstrate a novel, epoch-based, model-independent method to mitigate stellar…

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 travel times of light signals between two antipodal points on the surface of a compact star are calculated for two different trajectories: a straight line that passes through the center of the star and a semi-circular trajectory that…

We present analytic estimates of the fractional uncertainties on the mass, radius, surface gravity, and density of a transiting planet, using only empirical or semi-empirical measurements. We first express these parameters in terms of…

Research into light curves from stars (temporal variation of brightness) has completely changed how exoplanets are discovered or characterised. This study including star light curves from the Kepler dataset as a way to discover exoplanets…

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…

Context. Considerable effort has been put into using light curves observed by space telescopes such as CoRoT, Kepler and TESS for determining stellar rotation periods. While rotation periods of active stars can be reliably determined, the…

We consider the issue of excessive TTV noise observed for the exoplanet HD 189733 b. Trying to explain it through the host star photospheric activity, we model the stellar surface brightness as a random field, then characterize statistical…

It is known that the shape of a planet (oblateness, rings, etc.) slightly modifies the shape of the transit light curve. The forthcoming space missions (Corot, Kepler), able to detect the transit of Earth-like planets, could a fortiori also…

M dwarf stars comprise 70-80% of the galaxy's stars and host most of its rocky planets. They also importantly differ from Sunlike stars in that they are "active" for billions of years or more: rotating quickly, flaring often, and emitting…

We present a theoretical analysis of the optical light curves (LCs) for short-period high-mass transiting extrasolar planet systems. Our method considers the primary transit, the secondary eclipse, and the overall phase shape of the LC…

In this paper, we explore the astrophysical implications of near-field microlensing and its effects on stellar transit observations, with a special emphasis on the Kepler mission. Kepler is a NASA-approved mission whose goal is to detect a…

I present an homogeneous analysis of the transit light curves of 14 well-observed transiting extrasolar planets. The light curves are modelled using JKTEBOP, random errors are measured using Monte Carlo simulations, and the effects of…

We present a quantitative analysis of the effect of microlensing caused by random motion of individual stars in the galaxy which is lensing a background quasar. We calculate a large number of magnification patterns for positions of the…

(Abridged) Space missions to search for exo-planets via the transit method, such as COROT, Eddington and Kepler, will need to address problems associated with the automated and efficient detection of planetary transits in light curves…

Transits in the WASP-57 planetary system have been found to occur half an hour earlier than expected. We present ten transit light curves from amateur telescopes, on which this discovery was based, thirteen transit light curves from…

Context. By now more than 300 planets transiting their host star have been found, and much effort is being put into measuring the properties of each system. Light curves of planetary transits often contain deviations from a simple transit…

We present optical photometry of 16 transits of the super-Earth GJ 1214b, allowing us to refine the system parameters and search for additional planets via transit timing. Starspot-crossing events are detected in two light curves, and the…

Light refracted by the planet's atmosphere is usually ignored in analysis of planetary transits. Here we show that refraction can add shoulders to the transit light curve, i.e., an increase in the observed flux, mostly just before and after…

We present RIz photometry of four consecutive transits of the newly discovered exoplanet XO-1b. We improve upon the estimates of the transit parameters, finding the planetary radius to be R_P = 1.184 +0.028/-0.018 R_Jupiter and the stellar…