Related papers: Improving transit characterisation with Gaussian p…
We present analytic estimates of the fractional uncertainties on the mass, radius, surface gravity, and density of a transiting planet, using only empirical or semi-empirical measurements. We first express these parameters in terms of…
One of the persistent complications in searches for transiting exoplanets is the low percentage of the detected candidates that ultimately prove to be planets, which significantly increases the load on the telescopes used for the follow-up…
The mid-transit times of an exoplanet may be non-periodic. The variations in the timing of the transits with respect to a single period, that is, the transit timing variations (TTVs), can sometimes be attributed to perturbations by other…
There is a unique solution of the planet and star parameters from a planet transit light curve with two or more transits if the planet has a circular orbit and the light curve is observed in a band pass where limb darkening is negligible.…
Exoplanet transits contain substantial information about the architecture of a system. By fitting transit light curves we can extract dynamical parameters and place constraints on the properties of the planets and their host star. Having a…
Granulation in the photospheres of FGK-type stars induces variability in absorption lines, complicating exoplanet detection via radial velocities and characterisation via transmission spectroscopy. We aim to quantify the impact of…
We present and discuss five candidate exoplanetary systems identified with the Kepler spacecraft. These five systems show transits from multiple exoplanet candidates. Should these objects prove to be planetary in nature, then these five…
Transit timing variations - deviations from strict periodicity between successive passages of a transiting planet - can be used to probe the structure and dynamics of multiple-planet systems. In this paper, we examine prospects for…
Grazing transits present a special problem for statistical studies of exoplanets. Even though grazing planetary orbits are rare (due to geometric selection effects), for many low to moderate signal-to-noise cases, a significant fraction of…
Gaussian processes (GPs) have been extensively utilized as nonparametric models for component separation in 21 cm data analyses. This exploits the distinct spectral behavior of the cosmological and foreground signals, which are modeled…
By controlling instrumental errors to below 10 cm/s, the EXtreme PREcision Spectrograph (EXPRES) allows for a more insightful study of photospheric velocities that can mask weak Keplerian signals. Gaussian Processes (GP) have become a…
Space missions (CHEOPS, JWST, PLATO) facilitate detailed characterization of exoplanets. This work provides a framework to characterize cloud and climate properties of close-in gas giants via transit depth asymmetries from the optical to…
Stellar active regions like spots and faculae can distort the shapes of spectral lines, inducing variations in the radial velocities that are often orders of magnitude larger than the signals from Earth-like planets. Efforts to mitigate…
Multi-wavelength transit and secondary-eclipse light-curve observations are some of the most powerful techniques to probe the thermo-chemical properties of exoplanets. Although the large planet-to-star brightness contrast and few available…
Variability in the light curves of spotted, rotating stars is often non-sinusoidal and quasi-periodic --- spots move on the stellar surface and have finite lifetimes, causing stellar flux variations to slowly shift in phase. A strictly…
Since the discovery of the first exoplanets, those most adequate for life to begin and evolve have been sought. Due to observational bias, however, most of the discovered planets so far are gas giants, precluding their habitability.…
Gaussian processes (GPs) are commonplace in spatial statistics. Although many non-stationary models have been developed, there is arguably a lack of flexibility compared to equipping each location with its own parameters. However, the…
Of the approximately 350 extrasolar planets currently known, of order 10% orbit evolved stars with radii R >~ 2.5 R_sun. These planets are of particular interest because they tend to orbit more massive hosts, and have been subjected to…
Gaussian processes (GPs) are non-parametric probabilistic regression models that are popular due to their flexibility, data efficiency, and well-calibrated uncertainty estimates. However, standard GP models assume homoskedastic Gaussian…
The two most successful methods for exoplanet detection rely on the detection of planetary signals in photometric and radial velocity time-series. This depends on numerical techniques that exploit the synergy between data and theory to…