Related papers: Affordable spectroscopy for 1m-class telescopes
Accurate relative spectrophotometry is critical for many science applications. Small wavelength scale residuals in the flux calibration can significantly impact the measurements of weak emission and absorption features in the spectra. Using…
Just as the ordinary Doppler effect serves as a tool to measure radial velocities of celestial objects, so can the relativistic Doppler effect be implemented to measure a combination of radial and transverse velocities by using recent…
The proposed Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will survey the entire sky to locate the nearest and brightest transiting extrasolar planets with orbital periods up to about 36 days. Here we estimate the number and kind of…
In the context of extrasolar planet direct detection, we evaluated the performance of differential imaging with ground-based telescopes. This study was carried out in the framework of the VLT-Planet Finder project and is further extended to…
Context: Planets outside our solar system transiting their host star, i. e. those with an orbital inclination near 90 degree, are of special interest to derive physical properties of extrasolar planets. With the knowledge of the host star's…
Spectra of composite systems (e.g., spectroscopic binaries) contain spatial information that can be retrieved by measuring the radial velocities (i.e., Doppler shifts) of the components in four observations with the slit rotated by 90…
We present a catalog of cool dwarf targets ($V-J>2.7$, $T_{\rm eff} \lesssim 4000 K$) and their stellar properties for the upcoming Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), for the purpose of determining which cool dwarfs should be…
Variations related to stellar activity and correlated noise can prevent the detections of low-amplitude signals in radial velocity data if not accounted for. This can be seen as the greatest obstacle in detecting Earth-like planets orbiting…
Microlensing has proven to be a valuable tool to search for extrasolar planets of Jovian- to Super-Earth-mass planets at orbits of a few AU. Since planetary signals are of very short duration, an intense and continuous monitoring is…
The signal induced by a temperate, terrestrial planet orbiting a Sun-like star is an order of magnitude smaller than the host stars' intrinsic variability. Understanding stellar activity is, therefore, a fundamental obstacle in confirming…
We present a conceptual design for a space based Galactic Exoplanet Survey Telescope (GEST) which will use the gravitational microlensing technique to detect extra solar planets with masses as low as that of Mars at all separations >~ 1 AU.…
Stellar properties are measured for a large set of Kepler Mission exoplanet candidate host stars. Most of these stars are fainter than 14th magnitude, in contrast to other spectroscopic follow-up studies. This sample includes many…
We investigate directly imaging exoplanets around eclipsing binaries, using the eclipse as a natural tool for dimming the binary and thus increasing the planet to star brightness contrast. At eclipse, the binary becomes point-like, making…
Phase curves, or the change in observed illumination of the planet as it orbits around its host star, help us to characterize their atmospheres. However, the variability of the host star can make their detection challenging: the presence of…
(Abridged) We discuss the design considerations of the EXPLORE (EXtra-solar PLanet Occultation REsearch) project, a series of transiting planet searches using 4-m-class telescopes to continuously monitor a single field of stars in the…
The upcoming space missions that will characterize exoplanets, such as PLATO and Ariel, will collect huge amounts of data that will need to be complemented with ground-based observations. The aim of the PLATOSpec project is to perform…
Circumbinary planets - planets that orbit both stars in a binary system - offer the opportunity to study planet formation and orbital migration in a different environment compare to single stars. However, despite the fact that > 90% of…
We report first results from the Anglo-Australian Telescope Rocky Planet Search - an intensive, high-precision Doppler planet search targeting low-mass exoplanets in contiguous 48 night observing blocks. On this run we targeted 24 bright,…
We examined the solar gravitational lens (SGL) as the means to produce direct high-resolution, multipixel images of exoplanets. The properties of the SGL are remarkable: it offers maximum light amplification of ~1e11 and angular resolution…
Microlens parallax measurements combining space-based and ground-based observatories can be used to study planetary demographics. In recent years, the Spitzer Space Telescope was used as a microlens parallax satellite. Meanwhile,…