Related papers: Probing exoplanet clouds with optical phase curves
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…
The field of visible-light continuous time series photometry is now at its golden age, manifested by the continuum of past (CoRoT, Kepler), present (K2), and future (TESS, PLATO) space-based surveys delivering high precision data with a…
Light curves from the Kepler Mission contain valuable information on the nature of the phenomena producing the transit-like signals. To assist in exploring the possibility that they are due to an astrophysical false positive, we describe a…
Context. The photometric signal we receive from a star hosting a planet is modulated by the variation of the planet signal with its orbital phase. Such phase variations are observed for transiting hot Jupiters with current instrumentation,…
Motivated by the observational evidence of inhomogeneous clouds in exoplanetary atmospheres, we investigate how proposed simple cloud distributions can affect atmospheric circulations and infrared emission. We simulated temperatures and…
We have systematically searched for the phase curves among the planets discovered by \textit{K2}. Using the reported planetary parameters, we screen out the best potential candidates, and examine their light curves in detail. For our work,…
Future space-based direct imaging missions will perform low-resolution (R$<$100) optical (0.3-1~$\mu$m) spectroscopy of planets, thus enabling reflected spectroscopy of cool giants. Reflected light spectroscopy is encoded with rich…
The reflected spectra of extrasolar giant planets are primarily influenced by Rayleigh scattering, molecular absorption, and atmospheric condensates. We present model geometric albedo and phase integral spectra and Bond albedos for planets…
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…
It is the most appropriate time to characterize the Earth-like exoplanets in order to detect biosignature beyond the Earth because such exoplanets will be the prime targets of big-budget missions like JWST, Roman Space Telescope, HabEx,…
Context. Observations suggest that exoplanets such as HD 189733b form clouds in their atmospheres which have a strong feedback onto their thermodynamical and chemical structure, and overall appearance. Aims. Inspired by mineral cloud…
Future high precision photometric measurements of transiting extrasolar planets promise to tell us much about the nature of these systems. We examine how atmospheric lensing and (projected) planet oblateness/ellipticity modify transit light…
The reflected light signal from a planet throughout its orbit is a powerful probe of a planet's atmospheric properties. There are a number of planets that are amenable to reflected light phase curve studies with present and future…
Aims. We analyse unpublished Spitzer observations of the thermal phase-curve of WASP-121 b, a benchmark ultra-hot Jupiter. Methods. We adopted the wavelet pixel-independent component analysis technique to remove challenging instrumental…
The optical, full-phase photometric variations of a short-period planet provide a unique view of the planet's atmospheric composition and dynamics. The number of planets with optical phase curve detections, however, is currently too small…
We present two independent, homogeneous, global analyses of the transit light curves, radial velocities and spectroscopy of Kepler-4b through Kepler-8b, with numerous differences over the previous methods. These include: 1) improved…
[Abridged] We present a novel method to study the thermal emission of exoplanets as a function of orbital phase at very high spectral resolution, and apply it to investigate the climate of the ultra-hot Jupiter KELT-9b. We combine 3 nights…
Secondary eclipses and phase curves reveal information about the reflectivity and heat distribution in exoplanet atmospheres. The phase curve is composed of a combination of reflected, and thermally emitted light from the planet, and for…
We report the discovery and confirmation of Kepler-7b, a transiting planet with unusually low density. The mass is less than half that of Jupiter, Mp = 0.43 Mj, but the radius is fifty percent larger, Rp = 1.48 Rj. The resulting density,…
An intriguing, growing class of planets are the "super-puffs," objects with exceptionally large radii for their masses and thus correspondingly low densities ($\lesssim0.3\rm\,g\,cm^{-3}$). Here we consider whether they could have large…