Related papers: TauREx3 PhaseCurve: A 1.5D model for phase curve d…
In current models used to interpret exoplanet atmospheric observations, the planet mass is treated as a prior and is estimated independently with external methods, such as RV or TTV techniques. This approach is necessary as available…
Thermal phase curves of exoplanet atmospheres have revealed temperature maps as a function of planetary longitude, often by sinusoidal decomposition of the phase curve. We construct a framework for describing two-dimensional temperature…
The EXoplanet Climate Infrared TElescope (EXCITE) is a balloon-borne mission dedicated to measuring spectroscopic phase curves of hot Jupiter-type exoplanets. Phase curve measurements can be used to characterize an exoplanet's…
We develop a new method for analytical inversion of binned exoplanet transit spectra and for retrieval of planet parameters. The method has a geometrical interpretation and treats each observed spectrum as a single vector $\vec r$ in the…
Atmospheric retrievals (AR) characterize exoplanets by estimating atmospheric parameters from observed light spectra, typically by framing the task as a Bayesian inference problem. However, traditional approaches such as nested sampling are…
The probability of the detection of Earth-like exoplanets may increase in the near future after the launch of the space missions using the transit photometry as observation method. By using this technique only the semi-major axis of the…
We present a retrieval method based on Bayesian analysis to infer the atmospheric compositions and surface or cloud-top pressures from transmission spectra of exoplanets with general compositions. In this study, we identify what can…
This dissertation as a whole aims to provide means to better understand hot-Jupiter planets through observing, performing thermochemical calculations, and modeling their atmospheres. We used Spitzer multi-wavelength secondary-eclipse…
Even though it was not designed as an exoplanetary research mission, the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) has been opportunistically used for a novel experiment, in which Earth serves as a proxy exoplanet. More than two years of…
The recent discoveries of terrestrial exoplanets and super-Earths extending over a broad range of orbital and physical parameters suggest that these planets will span a wide range of climatic regimes. Characterization of the atmospheres of…
With the recent discoveries of hundreds of extrasolar planets, the search for planets like Earth and life in the universe, is quickly gaining momentum. In the future, large space observatories could directly detect the light scattered from…
Recently the Spitzer Space Telescope observed the transiting extrasolar planets, TrES-1 and HD209458b. These observations have provided the first estimates of the day side thermal flux from two extrasolar planets orbiting Sun-like stars. In…
[Abridged] Recently, there have been a series of detections of molecules in the atmospheres of extrasolar planets using high spectral resolution (R~100,000) observations, mostly using the CRyogenic high-resolution InfraRed Echelle…
Future observations of terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres will occur for planets at different stages of geological evolution. We expect to observe a wide variety of atmospheres and planets with alternative evolutionary paths, with some…
We present the Variable Star PhasE Curve (VSPEC) Collection, a set of Python packages for simulating combined-light spectroscopic observations of 3-dimensional exoplanet atmospheres in the presence of stellar variability and inhomogeneity.…
We present a new few-parameter phenomenological model of light curves of eclipsing binaries and stars with transiting planets that is able to fit the observed light curves with the accuracy better than 1\% of their amplitudes. The model can…
A planetary atmosphere is the outer gas layer of a planet. Besides its scientific significance among the first and most accessible planetary layers observed from space, it is closely connected with planetary formation and evolution, surface…
In a companion paper, we introduced a publicly-available pipeline to characterise exoplanet atmospheres through high-resolution spectroscopy. In this paper, we use this pipeline to study the biases and degeneracies that arise in atmospheric…
Over the past decade, observations of evaporating exoplanets have become increasingly common, driven by the discovery of the near-infrared helium-triplet line as a powerful probe of atmospheric escape. This process significantly influences…
The high-contrast imaging technique is meant to provide insight into those planets orbiting several astronomical units from their host star. Space missions such as WFIRST, HabEx, and LUVOIR will measure reflected light spectra of cold…