Related papers: The ExoGRAVITY project: using single mode interfer…
Since the discovery of the first exoplanets more than 20 years ago, there has been an increasing need for photometric and spectroscopic models to characterize these systems. While imaging has been used extensively for Solar System bodies…
Mass and radius are two fundamental properties for characterising exoplanets, but only for a relatively small fraction of exoplanets are they both available. Mass is often derived from radial velocity measurements, while the radius is…
Although transit spectroscopy is a powerful method for studying the composition, thermal properties and dynamics of exoplanet atmospheres, only a few transiting terrestrial exoplanets will be close enough to allow significant transit…
The light curve of an exoplanetary transit can be used to estimate the planetary radius and other parameters of interest. Because accurate parameter estimation is a non-analytic and computationally intensive problem, it is often useful to…
Characterization of exoplanets has matured in recent years, particularly through studies of exoplanetary atmospheres of transiting planets at infra-red wavelenegths. The primary source for such observations has been the Spitzer Space…
Interstellar radar is a potential intermediate step between passive observation of exoplanets and interstellar exploratory missions. Compared to passive observation, it has the traditional advantages of radar astronomy. It can measure…
Direct detection and detailed characterization of exoplanets using extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) is a key science goal of future extremely large telescopes (ELTs). However, wavefront errors will limit the sensitivity of this endeavor.…
The search for extrasolar planets has already detected rocky planets and several planetary candidates with minimum masses that are consistent with rocky planets in the habitable zone of their host stars. A low-resolution spectrum in the…
GRAVITY is a second generation instrument for the VLT Interferometer, designed to enhance the near-infrared astrometric and spectro-imaging capabilities of VLTI. Combining beams from four telescopes, GRAVITY will provide an astrometric…
We aim to interpret future photometric and spectral measurements from these instruments, in terms of physical parameters of the planets, with an atmospheric model using a minimal number of assumptions and parameters. We developed Exoplanet…
The detection and characterisation of extra-solar planets is a major theme driving modern astronomy, with the vast majority of such measurements being achieved by Doppler radial-velocity and transit observations. Another technique -- direct…
Exploring exoplanets has transformed our understanding of the universe by revealing many planetary systems that defy our current understanding. To study their atmospheres, spectroscopic observations are used to infer essential atmospheric…
NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has successfully discovered thousands of exoplanet candidates using the transit method, including hundreds of stars with multiple transiting planets. In order to estimate the frequency of these valuable…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will enable the search for and characterization of terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres in the habitable zone via transmission spectroscopy. However, relatively little work has been done to use solar…
The varied surfaces and atmospheres of planets make them interesting places to live, explore, and study from afar. Unfortunately, the great distance to exoplanets makes it impossible to resolve their disk with current or near-term…
The Monitor project is a photometric monitoring survey of nine young (1-200Myr) clusters in the solar neighbourhood to search for eclipses by very low mass stars and brown dwarfs and for planetary transits in the light curves of cluster…
Despite numerous search campaigns based on a diverse set of observational techniques, exomoons - prospective satellites of extrasolar planets - remain an elusive and hard-to-pin-down class of objects. Yet, the case for intensifying this…
Detecting exoplanet transits at X-ray wavelengths would provide a window into the effects of high energy irradiation on the upper atmospheres of planets. However, stars are relatively dim in the X-ray, making exoplanet transit detections…
Started approximately in the late 1980s, exoplanetology has up to now unveiled the main gross bulk characteristics of planets and planetary systems. In the future it will benefit from more and more large telescopes and advanced space…
Observations of stellar surfaces - except for the Sun - are hampered by their tiny angular extent, while observed spectral lines are smeared by averaging over the stellar surface, and by stellar rotation. Exoplanet transits can be used to…