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Thermal dust emission carries information on physical conditions and dust properties in many astronomical sources. Because observations represent a sum of emission along the line of sight, their interpretation often requires radiative…
We present a systematic phase curve analysis of known transiting systems observed by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) during year one of the primary mission. Using theoretical predictions for the amplitude of the planetary…
Starspots are cooler and darker than the stellar surface. Therefore, the emitted flux of a star changes when spots are visible on its surface. The presence of spots together with the stellar rotation leads to a periodic modulation on the…
The XO project aims at detecting transiting exoplanets around bright stars from the ground using small telescopes. The original configuration of XO (McCullough et al. 2005) has been changed and extended as described here. The instrumental…
The transit method is one of the most relevant exoplanet detection techniques, which consists of detecting periodic eclipses in the light curves of stars. This is not always easy due to the presence of noise in the light curves, which is…
The strength and vertical distribution of atmospheric turbulence is a key factor determining the performance of optical and infrared telescopes, with and without adaptive optics. Yet, this remains challenging to measure. We describe a new…
We present a solution for the light curve of two bodies mutually transiting a star with polynomial limb darkening. The term "mutual transit" in this work refers to a transit of the star during which overlap occurs between the two transiting…
We present an IDL graphical user interface-driven software package designed for the analysis of extrasolar planet transit light curves. The Transit Analysis Package (TAP) software uses Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques to fit light…
The photometric transit method has been the most effective method to detect and characterize exoplanets as several ground-based as well as space-based survey missions have discovered thousands of exoplanets using this method. With the…
A high accuracy photometric reduction method is needed to take full advantage of the potential of the transit method for the detection and characterization of exoplanets, especially in deep crowded fields. In this context, we present…
Stellar activity causes difficulties in the characterization of transiting exoplanets. Studies have been performed to quantify its impact on infrared interferometry, but not in the visible domain, which however allows reaching better…
Transits of habitable planets around solar-like stars are expected to be shallow, and to have long periods, which means low information content. The current bottleneck in the detection of such transits is caused in large part by the…
The detrending algorithms which are widely used to reduce the impact of stellar variability on space-based transit surveys are ill-suited for estimating the parameters of confirmed planets, as they unavoidably alter the transit signal. We…
Starspots are thought to be regions of locally strong magnetic fields, similar to sunspots, and they can generate photometric brightness modulations. To deduce stellar and spot properties, such as spot emergence and decay rates, we…
Point lens microlensing events with impact parameter close to the source stellar radius allow the observer to study the surface brightness profile of the lensed source. We have examined the effect of photospheric star spots on multicolour…
We investigate the pattern of anomalies in the light curves of caustic-crossing binary microlensing events induced by spot(s) on the lensed source star. For this purpose, we perform simulations of events with various models of spots. From…
Stellar photometric variability and instrumental effects, like cosmic ray hits, data discontinuities, data leaks, instrument aging etc. cause difficulties in the characterization of exoplanets and have an impact on the accuracy and…
We investigate the origin of a flux increase found during a transit of TrES-1, observed with the HST. This feature in the HST light curve cannot be attributed to noise and is supposedly a dark area on the stellar surface of the host star…
We propose a new method for investigating atmospheric inhomogeneities in exoplanets through transmission spectroscopy. Our approach links chromatic variations in conventional transit model parameters (central transit time, total and full…
A unique analytical solution of planet and star parameters can be derived from an extrasolar planet transit light curve under a number of assumptions. This analytical solution can be used to choose the best planet transit candidates for…