Related papers: Testing known and unknown systematics in HST/WFC3 …
More than 450 exoplanets are known and this number increases nearly every day. Only a few constraints on their orbital parameters and physical characteristics can be determined, as most exoplanets are detected indirectly. Measuring the…
Exoplanetary science is among the fastest evolving fields of today's astronomical research. Ground-based planet-hunting surveys alongside dedicated space missions (Kepler, CoRoT) are delivering an ever-increasing number of exoplanets, now…
Transiting exoplanets provide detailed access to their atmospheres, as the planet's signal can be effectively separated from that of its host star. For transiting exoplanets three fundamental atmospheric measurements are possible:…
Many planet candidates have been detected by radial velocity variations of the primary star; they are planet candidates, because of the unknown orbit inclination. Detection of the wobble in the two other dimensions, to be measured by…
WASP-12b is one of the most well-studied transiting exoplanets, as its highly-inflated radius and its 1.1 day orbit around a G0-type star make it an excellent target for atmospheric categorisation through observation during its secondary…
The analysis of exoplanetary atmospheres often relies upon the observation of transit or eclipse events. While very powerful, these snapshots provide mainly 1-dimensional information on the planet structure and do not easily allow precise…
Identifying and removing binary stars from stellar samples is a crucial but complicated task. Regardless of how carefully a sample is selected, some binaries will remain and complicate interpretation of results, especially via flux…
WASP0 is a prototype for what is intended to become a collection of wide-angle survey instruments whose primary aim is to detect extra-solar planets transiting across the face of their parent star. The WASP0 instrument is a wide-field…
Future missions, including the Habitable Worlds Observatory, will aim to image Earth-like exoplanets around Sun-like stars in reflected light. Determining whether an exoplanet is in the habitable zone of its star may be difficult in…
Direct imaging of exoplanets presents a formidable technical challenge owing to the small angular separation and high contrast between exoplanets and their host stars. High Dispersion Coronagraphy (HDC) is a pathway to achieve unprecedented…
We have conducted a re-analysis of publicly available Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 (HST WFC3) transmission data for the hot-Jupiter exoplanet WASP-43b, using the Bayesian retrieval package Tau-REx. We report evidence of AlO in…
The instruments at the focus of the Euclid space observatory offer superb, diffraction-limited imaging over an unprecedented (from space) wide field of view of 0.57 deg$^2$. This exquisite image quality has the potential to produce…
Spectroscopy across spatially resolved stellar surfaces reveals spectral line profiles free from rotational broadening, whose gradual changes from disk center toward the stellar limb reflect an atmospheric fine structure that is possible to…
We present Hubble Space Telescope near-infrared transmission spectroscopy of the transiting hot-Jupiter HAT-P-1b. We observed one transit with Wide Field Camera 3 using the G141 low-resolution grism to cover the wavelength range 1.087-…
Recent results from the Kepler mission indicate that super-Earths (planets with masses between 1-10 times that of the Earth) are the most common kind of planet around nearby Sun-like stars. These planets have no direct solar system…
In the era of state-of-the-art space-borne telescopes, high-resolution ground-based observation has emerged as a crucial method for characterizing exoplanets, providing essential insights into their atmospheric compositions. In the optical…
(Abridged) In the first part of this thesis, a general methodology for applying image deconvolution to wide-field CCD imagery. Results show that wavelet-based deconvolution can increase limiting magnitude up to 0.6 mag and improve limiting…
Secondary eclipse observations of several of the hottest hot Jupiters show featureless, blackbody-like spectra or molecular emission features, which are consistent with thermal inversions being present in those atmospheres. Theory predicts…
Observations of circumstellar environments to look for the direct signal of exoplanets and the scattered light from disks has significant instrumental implications. In the past 15 years, major developments in adaptive optics, coronagraphy,…
Our aim is to devise a detection method for exoplanet signatures (multiple sinusoids) that is both powerful and robust to partially unknown statistics under the null hypothesis. In the considered application, the noise is mostly created by…