Related papers: A Bayesian Framework for Exoplanet Direct Detectio…
When searching for exoplanets, one wants to count how many planets orbit a given star, and to determine what their characteristics are. If the estimated planet characteristics are too far from those of a planet truly present, this should be…
Exoplanet research is carried out at the limits of the capabilities of current telescopes and instruments. The studied signals are weak, and often embedded in complex systematics from instrumental, telluric, and astrophysical sources.…
While gravitational waves have not yet been measured directly, data analysis from detection experiments commonly includes an upper limit statement. Such upper limits may be derived via a frequentist or Bayesian approach; the theoretical…
The past five years has seen a surge in research and innovative ideas for the imaging of extrasolar planets, particular terrestrial ones. We expect that within the next decade a space observatory will be launched with the objective of…
Observational astrophysics consists of making inferences about the Universe by comparing data and models. The credible intervals placed on model parameters are often as important as the maximum a posteriori probability values, as the…
Direct imaging of exoplanets is a challenging task as it requires to reach a high contrast at very close separation to the star. Today, the main limitation in the high-contrast images is the quasi-static speckles that are created by…
Future space telescopes may be able to directly image $\sim$10 - 100 planets with sizes and orbits consistent with habitable surface conditions ("exo-Earth candidates" or EECs), but observers will face difficulty in distinguishing these…
The work presented here attempts at answering the question: how do we decide when a given adetection is a planet or just residual noise in exoplanet direct imaging data? To this end we present a method implemented within a Bayesian…
In almost every scientific field, an experiment involves collecting data and then analysing it. The analysis stage will often consist in trying to extract some physical parameter and estimating its uncertainty; this is known as Parameter…
(abridged) We develop Bayesian methods and detection criteria for orbital fitting, and revise the detectability of exoplanets in light of the in-flight properties of Gaia. Limiting ourselves to one-planet systems as a first step of the…
Planets on eccentric orbits have a higher geometric probability of transiting their host star. By application of Bayes' theorem, we reverse this logic to show that the eccentricity distribution of transiting planets is positively biased.…
A probabilistic technique for the joint estimation of background and sources with the aim of detecting faint and extended celestial objects is described. Bayesian probability theory is applied to gain insight into the coexistence of…
Over the past decade, hundreds of nights have been spent on the worlds largest telescopes to search for and directly detect new exoplanets using high-contrast imaging (HCI). Thereby, two scientific goals are of central interest: First, to…
In this paper we present a model independent analysis method following Bayesian statistics to analyse data from a generic counting experiment and apply it to the search for neutrinos from point sources. We discuss a test statistic defined…
Context. In exoplanet searches with radial velocity data, the most common statistical significance metrics are the Bayes factor and the false alarm probability (FAP). Both have proved useful, but do not directly address whether an exoplanet…
It is suggested that the distribution of orbital eccentricities for extrasolar planets is well-described by the Beta distribution. Several properties of the Beta distribution make it a powerful tool for this purpose. For example, the Beta…
Increasingly complex applications involve large datasets in combination with non-linear and high dimensional mathematical models. In this context, statistical inference is a challenging issue that calls for pragmatic approaches that take…
We describe work in progress by a collaboration of astronomers and statisticians developing a suite of Bayesian data analysis tools for extrasolar planet (exoplanet) detection, planetary orbit estimation, and adaptive scheduling of…
Exoplanet science promises a continued rapid accumulation of new observations in the near future, energizing a drive to understand and interpret the forthcoming wealth of data to identify signs of life beyond our Solar System. The large…
The estimation of the polarization $P$ of extragalactic compact sources in Cosmic Microwave Background images is a very important task in order to clean these images for cosmological purposes -- as, for example, to constrain the…