Related papers: Exploring A Photospheric Radius Correction to Mode…
Planets with non-zero obliquity and/or orbital eccentricity experience seasonal variations of stellar irradiation at local latitudes. The extent of the atmospheric response can be crudely estimated by the ratio between the orbital timescale…
Atmospheric regions below a refractive boundary are hidden in limb observations. Refraction thus creates a gray continuum in the planet's transmission spectrum which can hide spectral features associated with sources of atmospheric opacity.…
We have created a general methodology for calculating the wavelength-dependent light curves of close-in extrasolar giant planets (EGPs) as they traverse their orbits. Focussing on the transiting EGPs HD189733b, TrES-1, and HD209458b, we…
Context: Several studies have so far placed useful constraints on planetary atmospheric properties using transmission spectrsocopy, and in the case of HD209458b even the radial velocity of the planet during the transit event has been…
Transits of hot Jupiters in X-rays and the ultraviolet have been shown to be both deeper and more variable than the corresponding optical transits. This variability has been attributed to hot Jupiters having extended atmospheres at these…
We investigate the spectra of Earth-like planets but with different axial rotation periods. Using the general circulation model of the atmosphere and considering the atmospheric circulation lasting for two years, we calculated the radiation…
With over 1800 planets discovered outside of the Solar System in the past two decades, the field of exoplanetology has broadened our perspective on planetary systems. Research priorities are now moving from planet detection to planet…
Understanding a planet's atmosphere is a necessary condition for understanding not only the planet itself, but also its formation, structure, evolution, and habitability, This puts a premium on obtaining spectra, and developing credible…
Future high precision photometric measurements of transiting extrasolar planets promise to tell us much about the nature of these systems. We examine how atmospheric lensing and (projected) planet oblateness/ellipticity modify transit light…
Detection of the signature of Rayleigh scattering in the transmission spectrum of an exoplanet is increasingly becoming the target of observational campaigns because the spectral slope of the Rayleigh continuum enables one to determine the…
To date, the ability for observers to reveal the composition or thermal structure of an exoplanet's atmosphere has rested on two techniques: high-contrast direct imaging and time-series observations of transiting exoplanets. The former is…
Exoplanet transmission spectra provide rich information about the chemical composition, clouds and temperature structure of exoplanet atmospheres. Most exoplanet transmission spectra only span infrared wavelengths ($\gtrsim$ 1 $\rm{\mu…
We explore how well James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) spectra will likely constrain bulk atmospheric properties of transiting exoplanets. We start by modeling the atmospheres of archetypal hot Jupiter, warm Neptune, warm sub-Neptune, and…
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…
Transmission spectroscopy of Earth-like exoplanets is a potential tool for habitability screening. Transiting planets are present-day "Rosetta Stones" for understanding extrasolar planets because they offer the possibility to characterize…
We consider the spectrum, emissivity and flux of the electromagnetic radiation emitted by the thin electron layer (the electrosphere) at the surface of a bare strange star. In particular, we carefully consider the effect of the multiple and…
Rapid planetary rotation can cause the equilibrium shape of a planet to be oblate. While planetary oblateness has mostly been probed by examining the subtle ingress and egress features in photometric transit light curves, we investigate the…
A transiting planet eclipses part of the rotating stellar surface, thereby producing an anomalous Doppler shift of the stellar spectrum. Here I review how this "Rossiter-McLaughlin Effect" can be used to characterize exoplanetary systems.…
Exoplanet transmission spectra, which measure the absorption of light passing through a planet's atmosphere during transit, are most often assessed globally, resulting in a single spectrum per planetary atmosphere. However, the inherent…
A variety of terrestrial planets with different physical parameters and exotic atmospheres might plausibly exist outside our Solar System, waiting to be detected by the next generation of space-exploration missions. Some of these planets…