Related papers: Transit Photometry as an Exoplanet Discovery Metho…
The prevailing assumption is that all exoplanets are made of ordinary matter. However, we propose an unconventional possibility that some exoplanets could be made of dark matter, which we name "dark exoplanets." In this paper, we explore…
The currently feasible method of detection of Earth-mass planets is transit photometry, with detection probability decreasing with a planet's distance from the star. The existence or otherwise of short-period terrestrial planets will tell…
We typically measure the radii of transiting exoplanets from the transit depth, which is given by the ratio of cross-sectional areas of the planet and star. However, if a star has dark starspots (or bright regions) distributed throughout…
The observed properties of transiting exoplanets are an exceptionally rich source of information that allows us to understand and characterize their physical properties. Unfortunately, only a relatively small fraction of the known…
The era of exoplanet characterization is upon us. For a subset of exoplanets -- the transiting planets -- physical properties can be measured, including mass, radius, and atmosphere characteristics. Indeed, measuring the atmospheres of a…
We present a theoretical analysis of the optical light curves (LCs) for short-period high-mass transiting extrasolar planet systems. Our method considers the primary transit, the secondary eclipse, and the overall phase shape of the LC…
With 40 or more transiting exoplanets now known, the time is ripe to seek patterns and correlations among their observed properties, which may give important insights into planet formation, structure, and evolution. This task is made…
Direct imaging searches for exoplanets around stars detect many spurious candidates that are in fact background field stars. To help distinguish these from genuine companions, multi-epoch astrometry can be used to identify a common proper…
The probability that an exoplanet transits its host star is high for planets in close orbits, but drops off rapidly for increasing semimajor axes. This makes transit surveys for planets with large semimajor axes orbiting bright stars…
Transits of bright stars offer a unique opportunity to study detailed properties of extrasolar planets that cannot be determined through radial-velocity observations. We propose a technique to find such systems using all-sky small-aperture…
In this PhD dissertation, I discuss issues of the Radial Velocities (RV) and transit methods. These techniques allow us to derive the mass and radius of an exoplanet, necessary to model its bulk structure and to have insight on its…
Tidal interactions between short-period exoplanets and their host stars drive orbital decay and have likely led to engulfment of planets by their stars. Precise transit timing surveys, with baselines now spanning decades for some planets,…
Thousands of transiting exoplanets have already been detected orbiting a wide range of host stars, including the first planets that could potentially be similar to Earth. The upcoming Extremely Large Telescopes and the James Webb Space…
The forthcoming space missions, able to detect Earth-like planets by the transit method, will a fortiori also be able to detect the transit of artificial planet-size objects. Multiple artificial objects would produce lightcurves easily…
The large number of new planets expected from wide-area transit surveys means that follow-up transmission spectroscopy studies of their atmospheres will be limited by the availability of telescope assets. We argue that telescopes covering a…
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…
Most of the known transiting exoplanets are in short-period orbits, largely due to the bias inherent in detecting planets through the transit technique. However, the eccentricity distribution of the known radial velocity planets results in…
Astrometric measurements of stellar systems are becoming significantly more precise and common, with many ground and space-based instruments and missions approaching 1 microarcsecond precision. We examine the multi-wavelength astrometric…
We introduce a new machine learning based technique to detect exoplanets using the transit method. Machine learning and deep learning techniques have proven to be broadly applicable in various scientific research areas. We aim to exploit…
The Wide Field Camera Transit Survey is a pioneer program aimed to search for extra-solar planets in the near-infrared. The standard data reduction pipeline of the program uses aperture photometry to construct the light curves. We…