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We present a catalog of uniformly processed 3.6-$\mu$m and 4.5-$\mu$m band exoplanet thermal phase curves based on Infrared Array Camera observations obtained from the Spitzer Heritage Archive. The catalog includes phase curve measurements…
Planets emit thermal radiation and reflect incident light that they recieve from their host stars. As a planet orbits it's host star the photometric variations associated with these two effects produce very similar phase curves. If observed…
Both direct and indirect methods of exoplanet detection rely upon detailed knowledge of the potential host stars. Such stellar characterization allows for accurate extraction of planetary properties, as well as contributing to our overall…
I present an homogeneous determination of the physical properties of 14 transiting extrasolar planetary systems for which good data are available. The input quantities for each system are the results of the light curve analyses (Paper 1),…
(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…
High contrast direct imaging of exoplanets can provide many important observables, including measurements of the orbit, spectra that probe the lower layers of the atmosphere, and phase variations of the planet, but cannot directly measure…
An exoplanet's optical phase curve constrains the thermal emission and albedo of the planet's surface and/or atmosphere, as well as potentially constraining the mass via gravitational influences on the host star. Recently, Jansen & Kipping…
Light curves show the flux variation from the target star and its orbiting planets as a function of time. In addition to the transit features created by the planets, the flux also includes the reflected light component of each planet, which…
Reflected light photometry of terrestrial exoplanets could reveal the presence of oceans and continents, hence placing direct constraints on the current and long-term habitability of these worlds. Inferring the albedo map of a planet from…
We analyze an intensity interferometry measurement carried out with two point-like detectors facing a distant source (e.g., a star) that may be partially occluded by an absorptive object (e.g., a planet). Such a measurement, based on the…
Transmission spectroscopy during planetary transits, which is based on the measurements of the variations of planet-to-star radius ratio as a function of wavelength, is a powerful technique to study the atmospheric properties of transiting…
With TESS and ground-based surveys searching for rocky exoplanets around cooler, nearby stars, the number of Earth-sized exoplanets that are well-suited for atmospheric follow-up studies will increase significantly. For atmospheric…
Transiting planet discoveries have yielded a plethora of information towards understanding the structure and atmospheres of extra-solar planets. These discoveries have been restricted to the short-period or low-periastron distance regimes…
Never before has the detection and characterization of exoplanets via transit photometry been as promising and feasible as it is now, due to the increasing breadth and sensitivity of time domain optical surveys. Past works have made use of…
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…
Ground based radial velocity (RV) searches continue to discover exoplanets below Neptune mass down to Earth mass. Furthermore, ground based transit searches now reach milli-mag photometric precision and can discover Neptune size planets…
We examined which exo-systems contain moons that may be detected in transit. We numerically modeled transit light curves of Earth-like and giant planets that cointain moons with 0.005--0.4 Earth-mass. The orbital parameters were randomly…
For exoplanet direct detection mission concepts such as Terrestrial Planet Finder or Exoplanet Probe, light from the exozodiacal dust tends to obscure any exoplanets present in the image. Data analysis methods to identify point sources…
We review the state of the art in follow-up photometry for planetary transit searches. Three topics are discussed: (1) Photometric monitoring of planets discovered by radial velocity to detect possible transits (2) Follow-up photometry of…
Searching for transits provides a very promising technique for finding close-in extra-solar planets. Transiting planets present the advantage of allowing one to determine physical properties such as mass and radius unambiguously. The…