Related papers: Affordable spectroscopy for 1m-class telescopes
Short-orbit gas giant planet formation/evolution mechanisms are still not well understood. One promising pathway to discriminate between mechanisms is to constrain the occurrence rate of these peculiar exoplanets at the earliest stage of…
Upcoming space-based photometric satellites offer the possibility of detecting continuum flux variability at the micro-magnitude level. We show that the Doppler flux variability induced by the reflex motion of stars due to planetary…
(abridged) The discovery of OGLE 2005-BLG-390Lb, the first cool rocky/icy exoplanet, impressively demonstrated the sensitivity of the microlensing technique to extra-solar planets below 10 M_earth. A planet of 1 M_earth in the same spot…
In recent years, high-resolution transmission spectroscopy in the near-infrared has led to detections of prominent molecules in several giant exoplanets on close-in orbits. This approach has traditionally relied on the large Doppler shifts…
Extreme adaptive optics systems are now in operation across the globe. These systems, capable of high order wavefront correction, deliver Strehl ratios of 90% in the near-infrared. Originally intended for the direct imaging of exoplanets,…
Radial velocity surveys are beginning to reach the time baselines required to detect Jupiter analogs, as well as sub-Saturn mass planets in close orbits. Therefore it is important to understand the sensitivity of these surveys at long…
We investigate the effect of planetary rotation on the transit spectrum of an extrasolar giant planet. During ingress and egress, absorption features arising from the planet's atmosphere are Doppler shifted by of order the planet's…
Direct detection is a very promising field in exoplanet science. It allows the detection of companions with large separation and allows their spectral analysis. A few planets have already been detected and are under spectral analysis. But…
Earth-like extra-solar planets may be detected with 1-2m class telescopes using the gravitational microlensing technique. The essential requirement is the ability to be able to carry out continuous observations of the galactic bulge. A…
Extrasolar planets observation and characterization by high contrast imaging instruments is set to be a very important subject in observational astronomy. Dedicated instruments are being developed to achieve this goal with very high…
Due to the efforts by numerous ground-based surveys and NASA's Kepler and TESS, there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of transiting exoplanets ideal for atmospheric characterization via spectroscopy with large platforms such as JWST and…
Stellar magnetic activity produces time-varying distortions in the photospheric line profiles of solar-type stars. These lead to systematic errors in high-precision radial-velocity measurements, which limit efforts to discover and measure…
With the example of Proxima Centauri we discuss the feasibility of detecting terrestrial planets (1 to a few M_Earth) using the high precision radial velocity (RV) technique. If a very high RV precision for M stars is achieved even planets…
We present results from our ongoing spectroscopic search for giant planets within 1 AU around a well-defined sample of metal-poor stars with HIRES on the Keck 1 telescope. We have achieved an rms radial velocity precision of $\sim 8$ m/s…
The detection of exoplanets through direct imaging has produced numerous new positive identifications in recent years. The technique is biased towards planets at wide separations due to the difficulty in removing the stellar signature at…
Precise Doppler studies of extrasolar planets require fine-grained control of observational cadence, i.e. the timing of and spacing between observations. We present a novel framework for scheduling a set of Doppler campaigns with different…
Within the ESPRESSO project a new flexible data reduction library is being built. ESPRESSO, the Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectral Observations is a fiber-fed, high-resolution, cross-dispersed echelle…
We use photometry from the Kepler Mission to study oscillations in gamma Doradus stars. Some stars show remarkably clear sequences of g modes and we use period echelle diagrams to measure period spacings and identify rotationally split…
Radial velocity identification of extrasolar planets has historically been dominated by optical surveys. Interest in expanding exoplanet searches to M dwarfs and young stars, however, has motivated a push to improve the precision of near…
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is conducting a two-year wide-field survey searching for transiting exoplanets around nearby bright stars that will be ideal for follow-up characterization. To facilitate studies of planet…