Related papers: Explicit relations and criteria for eclipses, tran…
Hot giant exoplanets are very exotic objects with no equivalent in the Solar System that allow us to study the behavior of atmospheres under extreme conditions. Their thermal and chemical day--night dichotomies associated with extreme wind…
The detection of thousands of extrasolar planets by the transit method naturally raises the question of whether potential extrasolar observers could detect the transits of the Solar System planets. We present a comprehensive analysis of the…
Reliable estimations of ephemeris errors are fundamental for the follow-up of CoRoT candidates. An equation for the precision of minimum times, originally developed for eclipsing binaries, has been optimized for CoRoT photometry and been…
Searching for transits provides a very promising technique for finding close-in extra-solar planets. Transiting planets present the advantage of allowing one to determine physical properties such as mass and radius unambiguously. The…
We investigate a method to compute a finite set of preliminary orbits for solar system bodies using the first integrals of the Kepler problem. This method is thought for the applications to the modern sets of astrometric observations, where…
The growing catalog of circumbinary planets strengthens the notion that planets form in a diverse range of conditions across the cosmos. Transiting circumbinary planets yield especially important insights and many examples are now known, in…
Astrophysical false positives due to stellar eclipsing binaries pose one of the greatest challenges to ground-based surveys for transiting Hot Jupiters. We have used known properties of multiple star systems and Hot Jupiter systems to…
Context: Observation of star occultations is a powerful tool to determine shapes and sizes of asteroids. This is key information necessary for studying the evolution of the asteroid belt and to calibrate indirect methods of size…
Eclipsing planetary systems give us an important window on extrasolar planet atmospheres. By measuring the depth of the secondary eclipse, when the planet moves behind the star, we can estimate the strength of the thermal emission from the…
The next generation of exoplanet space photometry missions proposed by both NASA and ESA promise to discover small transiting planets around the nearest and brightest main-sequence stars. The physical and rotational properties of these…
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…
Eclipsing binaries provide one of the most direct mechanisms for measuring stellar properties such as mass and radius, but historically, determining these properties has been non-trivial and computationally prohibitive. As such, only a…
In this paper, we determine the detectability of eclipsing binary star companions from eclipse timing variations using the Kepler mission dataset. Extensive and precise stellar time-series photometry from space-based missions enable…
Analyzing the available photometry from the Kepler satellite and other databases, we performed detailed light curve modeling of 10 eclipsing binary systems that were found to exhibit a periodic modulation of their orbital periods. All of…
Rotation and orbital eccentricity both strongly influence planetary climate. Eccentricities can often be measured for exoplanets, but rotation rates are currently difficult or impossible to constrain. Here we examine how the combined…
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…
We report on the properties of eclipsing binaries from the Kepler mission with a newly developed photometric modeling code, which uses the light curve, spectral energy distribution of each binary, and stellar evolution models to infer…
We develop a theoretical framework for the calculation of orbits for a system consisting of a spherical object and a non-spherical body, which is then specialized to a prolate ellipsoid. Particular trajectories are presented that illustrate…
A planetary transit produces both a photometric signal and a spectroscopic signal. Precise observations of the transit light curve reveal the planetary radius and allow a search for timing anomalies caused by satellites or additional…
Knowledge of the orbits of visual binary stars has always been one of the fundamentals of astronomy. Based historically on the visual measures, nowadays the orbits rely more (or exclusively) on the accurate speckle data. This prompts…