Related papers: Planet transit and stellar granulation detection w…

With about 700 confirmed extrasolar planets, it is time to move beyond discovery and towards characterization. Perhaps the most basic parameter of an extrasolar planet is its mass; however, this is very difficult to determine if the planet…

Since 2008 we have run an observational program to accurately measure the characteristics of known exoplanet systems hosting close-in transiting giant planets, i.e. hot Jupiters. Our study is based on high-quality photometric follow-up…

Although transit spectroscopy is a powerful method for studying the composition, thermal properties and dynamics of exoplanet atmospheres, only a few transiting terrestrial exoplanets will be close enough to allow significant transit…

We investigate whether rings around extrasolar planets could be detected from those planets' transit lightcurves. To this end we develop a basic theoretical framework for calculating and interpreting the lightcurves of ringed planet…

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…

[ABRIDGED] In this study, we set out to a) demonstrate the sensitivity to <4 R_E transiting planets with periods of a few days around our program stars, and b) improve our knowledge of some astrophysical properties(e.g., activity, rotation)…

Future telescopes will characterize rocky exoplanets in reflected light, revealing their albedo, which depends on surface, cloud, and atmospheric properties. Identifying these features is crucial for assessing habitability. We present…

We develop a method for predicting the yield of transiting planets from a photometric survey given the parameters of the survey (nights observed, bandpass, exposure time, telescope aperture, locations of the target fields, observational…

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…

Observations of extrasolar planets using Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS), if coupled with an extreme Adaptive Optics system and analyzed with a Simultaneous Differential Imaging technique (SDI), are a powerful tool to detect and…

[Abridged] Recently, there have been a series of detections of molecules in the atmospheres of extrasolar planets using high spectral resolution (R~100,000) observations, mostly using the CRyogenic high-resolution InfraRed Echelle…

Spectrographs like HARPS can now reach a sub-m/s precision in radial-velocity (RV) (Pepe & Lovis 2008). At this level of accuracy, we start to be confronted with stellar noise produced by 3 different physical phenomena: oscillations,…

Stellar granulation arises from near-surface convection and is imprinted in stellar photometric time series, yet links between granulation observables and fundamental stellar properties remain underexploited. We aim to establish a…

Many of the planets discovered via the radial velocity technique are hot Jupiters in 3-5 day orbits with ~10$% chance of transiting their parent star. However, radial velocity surveys for extra-solar planets generally require substantial…

The initial task that confronted extrasolar-planet transit surveys was to monitor enough stars with sufficient photometric precision and complete phase coverage. Numerous searches have been pursued over the last few years. Among these…

Detecting and characterizing the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets has proven to be challenging for JWST. Transit spectroscopy of the TRAPPIST-1 planets has been impacted by the effects of spots and faculae on the host star. Secondary…

We have carried out photometric follow-up observations of bright transiting extrasolar planets using the CbNUOJ 0.6m telescope. We have tested the possibility of obtaining high photometric precision by applying the telescope defocus…

To detect Earth-mass planets using the Doppler method, a major obstacle is to differentiate the planetary signal from intrinsic stellar variability (e.g., pulsations, granulation, spots and plages). Convective blueshift, which results from…

Radio wavelength astrometry of stars and other objects has a long and productive history. The use of that technique to determine whether stars have planets around them would cover a nearly unique part of the parameter space for detection of…

Planetary magnetic fields can affect the predicted mass loss rate for close-in planets that experience large amounts of UV irradiation. In this work, we present a method to detect the magnetic fields of close-in exoplanets undergoing…