Related papers: Global Mapping of an Exo-Earth using Sparse Modeli…
The time series of light reflected from exoplanets by future direct imaging can provide spatial information with respect to the planetary surface. We apply sparse modeling to the retrieval method that disentangles the spatial and spectral…
Scattered lights from terrestrial exoplanets provide valuable information about the planetary surface. Applying the surface reconstruction method proposed by Fujii et al. (2010) to both diurnal and annual variations of the scattered light,…
We develop an inversion technique of annual scattered light curves to sketch a two-dimensional albedo map of exoplanets in face-on orbits. As a test-bed for future observations of extrasolar terrestrial planets, we apply this mapping…
Future space telescopes will directly image extrasolar planets at visible wavelengths. Time-resolved reflected light from an exoplanet encodes information about atmospheric and surface inhomogeneities. Previous research has shown that the…
We present a novel method for direct detection and characterization of exoplanets from space. This method uses four collecting telescopes, combined with phase chopping and a spectrometer, with observations on only a few baselines rather…
Finding potential life harboring exo-Earths is one of the aims of exoplanetary science. Detecting signatures of life in exoplanets will likely first be accomplished by determining the bulk composition of the planetary atmosphere via…
Reflected light photometry of terrestrial exoplanets could reveal the presence of oceans and continents, hence placing direct constraints on the current and long-term habitability of these worlds. Inferring the albedo map of a planet from…
Resolving spatially-varying exoplanet features from single-point light curves is essential for determining whether Earth-like worlds harbor geological features and/or climate systems that influence habitability. To evaluate the feasibility…
We propose a direct imaging method for the detection of exoplanets based on a combined low-rank plus structured sparse model. For this task, we develop a dictionary of possible effective circular trajectories a planet can take during the…
This paper highlights methods from geostatistics that are relevant to the interpretation, intercomparison, and synthesis of atmospheric model data, with a specific application to exoplanet atmospheric modeling. Climate models are…
Photometric variation of a directly imaged planet contains information on both the geography and spectra of the planetary surface. We propose a novel technique that disentangles the spatial and spectral information from the multi-band…
A space telescope capable of high-contrast imaging has been recognized as the avenue toward finding terrestrial planets around nearby Sun-like stars and characterizing their potential habitability. It is thus essential to quantify the…
In the near-future, dedicated telescopes observe Earth-like exoplanets in reflected light, allowing their characterization. Because of the huge distances, every exoplanet will be a single pixel, but temporal variations in its spectral flux…
Characterizing the surfaces of rocky exoplanets via the scattered light will be an essential challenge to investigate the existence of life on habitable exoplanets. We present a simple reconstruction method for fractional areas of different…
Spectral retrieval techniques are currently our best tool to interpret the observed exoplanet atmospheric data. Said techniques retrieve the optimal atmospheric components and parameters by identifying the best fit to an observed…
Point source spectrophotometric ("single-point") light curves of Earth-like planets contain a surprising amount of information about the spatial features of those worlds. Spatially resolving these light curves is important for assessing…
We derive efficient, closed form, differentiable, and numerically stable solutions for the flux measured from a spherical planet or moon seen in reflected light, either in or out of occultation. Our expressions apply to the computation of…
We have surveyed all conventional methods proposed or conceivable for obtaining resolved images of an Earth-like exoplanet. Generating a 10 x 10 pixel map of a 1 R_E world at 10 pc demands ~0.85 uas angular resolution and photon-collection…
We consider the problem of recovering an unknown effectively $(s_1,s_2)$-sparse low-rank-$R$ matrix $X$ with possibly non-orthogonal rank-$1$ decomposition from incomplete and inaccurate linear measurements of the form $y = \mathcal A (X) +…
We present a method that employs the secondary eclipse light curves of transiting extrasolar planets to probe the spatial variation of their thermal emission. This technique permits an observer to resolve the surface of the planet without…