Related papers: Disentangling planetary and stellar activity featu…
We analyze variations in the transit lightcurves of CoRoT-2b, a massive hot Jupiter orbiting a highly active G star. We use one transit lightcurve to eclipse-map a photospheric spot occulted by the planet. In this case study we determine…
CoRoT-2, the second planet-hosting star discovered by the CoRoT satellite, is a young and active star. A total of 77 transits were observed for this system over a period of 135 days. Small modulations detected in the optical light curve of…
This thesis focuses on the detection of extrasolar planets via the transit method, and more specifically addresses issues relevant to the preparation of upcoming space missions such as CoRoT, Kepler, Eddington, aiming to detect terrestrial…
Limb-darkening is fundamental in determining transit lightcurve shapes, and is typically modeled by a variety of laws that parametrize the intensity profile of the star that is being transited. Confronted with a transit lightcurve, some…
Stellar activity is ubiquitous in late-type stars. The special geometry of eclipsing binary systems is particularly advantageous to study the stellar surfaces and activity. We present a detailed study of the 145 d CoRoT light curve of the…
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the Kepler space mission observed a large number of planetary transits showing anomalies due to starspot eclipses, with more such observations expected in the near future by the K2 mission and the…
Context. Detecting regular dips in the light curve of a star is an easy way to detect the presence of an orbiting planet. COROT is a Franco-European mission launched at the end of 2006, and one of its main objectives is to detect planetary…
The detection of planetary transits in the light curves of active stars, featuring correlated noise in the form of stellar variability, remains a challenge. Depending on the noise characteristics, we show that the traditional technique that…
One of the persistent complications in searches for transiting exoplanets is the low percentage of the detected candidates that ultimately prove to be planets, which significantly increases the load on the telescopes used for the follow-up…
We present a direct method for isolating the component of the starlight blocked by a planet as it transits its host star, and apply it to spectra of the bright transiting planet HD 189733b. We model the global shape of the stellar…
The lightcurve of CoRoT-2 shows substantial rotational modulation and deformations of the planet's transit profiles caused by starspots. We consistently model the entire lightcurve, including both rotational modulation and transits,…
Light curves feature many kinds of variability, including instrumental systematics, intrinsic stellar variability such as pulsations, and flux changes caused by transiting exoplanets or eclipsing binary stars. Detrending is a key…
I derive the physical properties of 30 transiting extrasolar planetary systems using a homogeneous analysis of published data. The light curves are modelled with the JKTEBOP code, with attention paid to limb darkening and eccentricity. The…
From an observational standpoint, stellar activity poses a critical challenge to exoplanet science, as it inhibits the detection of planets and the precise measurement of their parameters. Radial velocity and transit searches revealed a…
There is a unique solution of the planet and star parameters from a planet transit light curve with two or more transits if the planet has a circular orbit and the light curve is observed in a band pass where limb darkening is negligible.…
The CoRoT satellite has made available high precision photometric observations of a large number of stars of different spectral types. Continuous photometric time series allow the characterization of stellar microvariability in a systematic…
Research into light curves from stars (temporal variation of brightness) has completely changed how exoplanets are discovered or characterised. This study including star light curves from the Kepler dataset as a way to discover exoplanets…
Context. We present a model-free method for mapping surface brightness variations. Aims. We aim to develop a method that is not dependent on either stellar atmosphere models or limb-darkening equation. This method is optimized for exoplanet…
The depth of an exoplanetary transit in the light curve of a distant star is commonly approximated as the squared planet-to-star radius ratio, (R_p/R_s)^2. Stellar limb darkening, however, results in significantly deeper transits. Here we…
I calculate the physical properties of 32 transiting extrasolar planet and brown dwarf systems from existing photometric observations and measured spectroscopic parameters. The systems studied include fifteen observed by CoRoT, ten by…