Related papers: Inferring asymmetric limb cloudiness on exoplanets…
Observations of the phase curves and secondary eclipses of extrasolar planets provide a window on the composition and thermal structure of the planetary atmospheres. For example, the photometric observations of secondary eclipses lead to…
Research in extrasolar-planet science is data-driven. With the advent of radial-velocity instruments like HARPS and HARPS-N, and transit space missions like Kepler, our ability to discover and characterise extrasolar planets is no longer…
Astrometry covers a parameter space that cannot be reached by RV or transit methods to detect terrestrial planets on wide orbits. In addition, high accuracy astrometric measurements are necessary to measure the inclination of the planet's…
Knowledge of an exoplanet's oblateness and obliquity would give clues about its formation and internal structure. In principle, a light curve of a transiting planet bears information about the planet's shape, but previous work has shown…
It is possible to learn a great deal about exoplanet atmospheres even when we cannot spatially resolve the planets from their host stars. In this chapter, we overview the basic techniques used to characterize transiting exoplanets -…
The transmission spectra of exoplanet atmospheres observed with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in the near-infrared range (1.1-1.65$\mu$m) frequently show evidence for some combination of clouds and hazes. Identification of systematic…
Transmission spectroscopy has greatly advanced the study of exoplanet atmospheres, but stellar surface heterogeneities can contaminate transit spectra. Characterising how stellar spectra vary across the stellar disc is therefore essential…
We developed a dedicated statistical test for a massive detection of spot- and facula-crossing anomalies in multiple exoplanetary transit lightcurves, based on the frequentist $p$-value thresholding. This test was used to augment our…
Stellar surface heterogeneities, such as spots and faculae, often contaminate exoplanet transit spectra, hindering precise atmospheric characterization. We demonstrate a novel, epoch-based, model-independent method to mitigate stellar…
The increasing number of transiting exoplanets sparked a significant interest in discovering their moons. Most of the methods in the literature utilize timing analysis of the raw light curves. Here we propose a new approach for the direct…
Ultra-hot Jupiters have recently attracted interest from observers and theoreticians alike, as they provide observationally accessible test cases. We apply a hierarchical modelling approach as a virtual laboratory to study cloud formation…
In recent years, it has become clear that a substantial fraction of transiting exoplanets have some form of aerosol present in their atmospheres. Transit spectroscopy - mostly of hot Jupiters, but also of some smaller planets - has provided…
Although the main goal of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (\textit{TESS}) is to search for new transiting exoplanets, its data can also be used to study in further detail already known systems. The \textit{TESS} bandpass is…
Context. The spectra of fast-rotating A-type stars have strongly broadened absorption lines. This effect causes blending of the absorption lines, hindering the measurement of the abundances of the elements that are in the stellar…
Accurate estimations of atmospheric properties of exoplanets from transmission spectra require understanding of degeneracies between model parameters and observations that can resolve them. We conduct a systematic investigation of such…
Ultra-hot Jupiters are the hottest exoplanets discovered so far. Observations begin to provide insight into the composition of their extended atmospheres and their chemical day/night asymmetries. Both are strongly affected by cloud…
As an exoplanet orbits its host star it reflects and emits light, forming a distinctive phase curve. By observing this light, we can study the atmosphere and surface of distant planets. The planets in our Solar System show a wide range of…
Transmission spectroscopy provides a powerful probe of the atmospheric properties of transiting exoplanets. To date, studies of exoplanets in transit have focused on inferring their atmospheric properties such as chemical compositions,…
Spotted stars in eclipsing binary systems allow us to gather significant information about the stellar surface inhomogeneities that is otherwise impossible from only photometric data. Starspots can be scanned using the eclipse (or transit)…
We analyze 26 archival Kepler transits of the exo-Neptune HAT-P-11b, supplemented by ground-based transits observed in the blue (B-band) and near-IR (J-band). Both the planet and host star are smaller than previously believed; our analysis…