Related papers: Prospects for detecting decreasing exoplanet frequ…
Transiting exoplanets provide detailed access to their atmospheres, as the planet's signal can be effectively separated from that of its host star. For transiting exoplanets three fundamental atmospheric measurements are possible:…
PLATO is designed to detect Earth-sized exoplanets around solar-type stars and to measure their radii with accuracy better than \(2\%\) via the transit method. Charge transfer inefficiency (CTI), a by-product of radiation damage to CCDs,…
We present a stability analysis of a large set of simulated planetary systems of three or more planets based on architectures of multiplanet systems discovered by \textit{Kepler} and \textit{K2}. We propagated 21,400 simulated planetary…
Imaging of planets is very difficult, due to the glare from their nearby, much brighter suns. Static and slowly-evolving aberrations are the limiting factors, even after application of adaptive optics. The residual speckle pattern is highly…
PLATO will begin observing stars in its Southern Field (LOPS2) after its launch in late 2026. By this time, TESS will have observed the stars in LOPS2 for at least four years. We find that by 2025, on average each star in the PLATO field…
Previous studies have shown that planets that rotate retrograde (backwards with respect to their orbital motion) generally experience less severe obliquity variations than those that rotate prograde (the same direction as their orbital…
The space mission CoRoT (COnvection, ROtation and planetary Transits) will offer the possibility to detect extrasolar planets by means of the transit method. The satellite will observe about 60000 targets in the range 11.0<V<16.0, located…
The dynamical stability of tightly packed exoplanetary systems remains poorly understood. While for a two-planet system a sharp stability boundary exists, numerical simulations of three and more planet systems show that they can experience…
Transiting planet discoveries have yielded a plethora of information regarding the internal structure and atmospheres of extra-solar planets. These discoveries have been restricted to the low-periastron distance regime due to the bias…
New observational facilities are beginning to enable insights into the three-dimensional (3D) nature of exoplanets. Transmission spectroscopy is the most widely used method for characterizing transiting temperate exoplanet's atmospheres,…
To improve our understanding of orbital instabilities in compact planetary systems, we compare suites of $N$-body simulations against numerical integrations of simplified dynamical models. We show that, surprisingly, dynamical models that…
The efficiency of tidal dissipation provides a zeroth-order link to a planet's physical properties. For super-Earth and sub-Neptune planets in the range $R_{\oplus}\lesssim R_p \lesssim 4 R_{\oplus}$, particularly efficient dissipation…
A new era of directly imaged extrasolar planets has produced a three-planet system (Marois et al. 2008), where the masses of the planets have been estimated by untested cooling models. We point out that the nominal circular, face-on orbits…
A promising method for detecting earth-sized exoplanets is the timing analysis of a known transit. The technique allows a search for variations in either the transit duration or the center induced by the perturbation of a third body, e.g. a…
Transmission spectroscopy is an important technique to probe the atmospheres of exoplanets. With the advent of TESS and, in the future, of PLATO, more and more transiting planets around bright stars will be found and the observing time at…
Many features of the outer solar system are replicated in numerical simulations if the giant planets undergo an orbital instability that ejects one or more ice giants. During this instability, Jupiter and Saturn's orbits diverge, crossing…
We explore the possibility that the transit signature of an Earth-size planet can be detected in spectroscopic velocity shifts via the Rossiter effect. Under optimistic but not unrealistic conditions, it should be possible to detect a large…
For centuries, our knowledge of planetary systems and ideas about planet formation were based on a single example, our solar system. During the last thirteen years, the discovery of ~170 planetary systems has ushered in a new era for…
Understanding a planet's atmosphere is a necessary condition for understanding not only the planet itself, but also its formation, structure, evolution, and habitability, This puts a premium on obtaining spectra, and developing credible…
Detection of Jupiter mass companions to nearby solar type stars with precise radial velocity measurements is now routine, and Doppler surveys are moving towards lower velocity amplitudes. The detection of several Neptune-mass planets with…