Related papers: Analytic Reflected Lightcurves for Exoplanets
At optical wavelengths, an exoplanet's signature is essentially reflected light from the host star - several orders of magnitude fainter. Since it is superimposed on the star spectrum its detection has been a difficult observational…
First generation optical coronagraphic telescopes will obtain images of cool gas and ice giant exoplanets around nearby stars. The albedo spectra of exoplanets at planet-star separations larger than about 1 AU are dominated by reflected…
Identifying liquid water on the surface of planets is a high priority, as this traditionally defines habitability. One proposed signature of oceans is specular reflection ("glint"), which increases the apparent albedo of a planet at…
Main-sequence stars earlier than spectral type ~F6 or so are expected to rotate rapidly due to their radiative exteriors. This rapid rotation leads to an oblate stellar figure. It also induces the photosphere to be hotter (by up to several…
The presence of silicate material in known rings in the Solar System raises the possibility of ring systems existing even within the snow line -- where most transiting exoplanets are found. Previous studies have shown that the detection of…
Only one exoplanet has so far been mapped in both longitude and latitude, but the James Webb Space Telescope should provide mapping-quality data for dozens of exoplanets. The thermal phase mapping problem has previously been solved…
High-accuracy multicolor light curves of the binary system HD 189733, which contains an exoplanet, are analyzed. We have determined the radii of the star and the planet in the binary system, as well as the orbital inclination. The…
High precision lightcurves combined with eclipse mapping techniques can reveal the horizontal and vertical structure of a planet's thermal emission and the dynamics of hot Jupiters. Someday, they even may reveal the surface maps of rocky…
Optical phase curves of hot Jupiters can reveal global scattering properties. We implement a Bayesian inference framework for optical phase curves with flux contributions from: reflected light from a potentially inhomogeneous atmosphere,…
Spectral retrieval techniques are currently our best tool to interpret the observed exoplanet atmospheric data. Said techniques retrieve the optimal atmospheric components and parameters by identifying the best fit to an observed…
The light scattered by an extrasolar Earth-like planet's surface and atmosphere will vary in intensity and color as the planet rotates; the resulting light curve will contain information about the planet's properties. Since most of the…
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…
We present exact analytic formulae for the eclipse of a star described by quadratic or nonlinear limb darkening. In the limit that the planet radius is less than a tenth of the stellar radius, we show that the exact lightcurve can be well…
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,…
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…
We present modeled flux and linear polarisation signals of starlight that is reflected by spatially unresolved, horizontally inhomogeneous planets and discuss the effects of including horizontal inhomogeneities on the flux and polarisation…
The characterization of planetary atmospheres is a daunting task, pushing current observing facilities to their limits. The next generation of high-resolution spectrographs mounted on large telescopes -- such as ESPRESSO@VLT and HIRES@ELT…
Extrasolar planets are a natural extension of the interacting binaries towards the companions with very small masses and similar tools might be used to study them. Unfortunately, the generally accepted treatment of the reflection effect in…
Substellar companions such as exoplanets and brown dwarfs exhibit changes in brightness arising from top-of-atmosphere inhomogeneities, providing insights into their atmospheric structure and dynamics. This variability can be measured in…
We present a method that employs the secondary eclipse light curves of transiting extrasolar planets to probe the spatial variation of their thermal emission. This technique permits an observer to resolve the surface of the planet without…