Related papers: Inferring Planetary Obliquity Using Rotational & O…
Increasingly precise space-based photometry uncovers higher-order effects in transits, eclipses and phase curves which can be used to characterize exoplanets in novel ways. The subtle signature induced by a rotationally deformed exoplanet…
Recent work suggests that many short-period extrasolar planets may have spin obliquities that are significantly tilted with respect to their orbital planes. These large obliquities are a natural outcome of ``secular spin-orbit resonance'',…
Polarimetry is one of the keys to enhanced direct imaging of exoplanets. Not only does it deliver a differential observable providing extra contrast, but when coupled with spectroscopy, it also reveals valuable information on the…
The Sun is not quite a perfect sphere, and its oblateness, thought to be induced through its rotation, has been measured using optical observations of its radius. Its gravitational quadrupole moment can then be deduced using solar models,…
The detection and characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets is one of the chief goals of astrophysics for the coming decades. Imaging in reflected light is well suited for characterizing Earth-like planets, as much can be learned…
Basic atmospheric properties such as albedo and heat redistribution between day and nightside have been inferred for a number of planets using observations of secondary eclipses and thermal phase curves. Optical phase curves have not yet…
It is believed that some numerical technique must be employed for the determination of the system parameters of a visual binary or a star with a planet because the relevant equations are not only highly nonlinear but also transcendental…
Optical interferometry provides us with a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of stellar structure and evolution. Through direct observation of rotationally distorted photospheres at sub-milliarcsecond scales, we are now able to…
The weak orbital-phase dependent reflection signal of an exoplanet contains information on the planet surface, such as the distribution of continents and oceans on terrestrial planets. This light curve is usually studied in the time domain,…
We present a procedure for determination of positions and orbital elements, and associated uncertainties, of outer Solar System planets. The orbit-fitting procedure is greatly streamlined compared to traditional methods because acceleration…
Planets reflect and linearly polarize the radiation that they receive from their host stars. The emergent polarization is sensitive to aspects of the planet atmosphere such as the gas composition and the occurrence of condensates and their…
Aiming at obtaining detailed information of surface environment of Earth analogs, Kawahara & Fujii (2011) proposed an inversion technique of annual scattered light curves named the spin-orbit tomography (SOT), which enables one to sketch a…
Recently, it has been shown that rocky planets orbiting neutron stars can be habitable under non unrealistic circumstances. If a distant, pointlike source of visible light such as a Sun-like main sequence star or the gravitationally lensed…
In the context of exoplanet detection, the performance of coronagraphs is limited by wavefront errors. To efficiently correct for these aberrations with a deformable mirror, it is mandatory to measure them using the science detector with a…
We discuss the interpretation of distortions to stellar spectral lines with particular attention to line bisectors in the presence of an orbiting planetary companion. We present a simple model whereby light reflected by the companion can…
Rotational mapping and glint are two proposed methods to directly detect liquid water on the surface of habitable exoplanets. However, false positives for both methods may prevent the unambiguous detection of exoplanet oceans. We use…
Stellar surface processes represent a fundamental limit to the detection of extrasolar planets with the currently most heavily-used techniques. As such, considerable effort has gone into trying to mitigate the impact of these processes on…
We present the measured projected obliquity -- the sky-projected angle between the stellar spin axis and orbital angular momentum -- of the inner planet of the HAT-P-17 multi-planet system. We measure the sky-projected obliquity of the star…
The eccentricity of a planet's orbit and the inclination of its orbital plane encode important information about its formation and history. However, exoplanets detected via direct-imaging are often only observed over a very small fraction…
The angle between the rotation and orbital axes of stars in binary systems -- the obliquity -- is an important indicator of how these systems form and evolve but few such measurements exist. We combine the sample of astrometric orbital…