Related papers: Orbital obliquity sampling in the Kepler-20 system…
The Kepler mission has allowed the detection of numerous multi-planet exosystems where the planetary orbits are relatively compact. The first such system detected was Kepler-11 which has six known planets at the present time. These kinds of…
Non-Keplerian dynamics of planetary orbits manifest in the transit light-curve as variations of different types. In addition to Transit Timing Variations (TTV's), the shape of the transits contains additional information on variations in…
Planet obliquity is the alignment or misalignment of a planet spin axis relative to its orbit normal. In a multiplanet system, this obliquity is a valuable signature of planet formation and evolutionary history. The young $\beta$ Pictoris…
The masses and radii of extrasolar planets are key observables for understanding their interior, formation and evolution. While transit photometry and Doppler spectroscopy are used to measure the radii and masses respectively of planets…
A crucial diagnostic that can tell us about processes involved in the formation and dynamical evolutionof planetary systems is the angle between the rotation axis of a star and a planet's orbital angular momentum vector ("spin-orbit"…
Rings around exoplanets (exorings) are one of the most expected discoveries in exoplanetary research. There is an increasing number of theoretical and observational efforts for detecting exorings, but none of them have succeeded yet. Most…
One possible diagnostic of planet formation, orbital migration, and tidal evolution is the angle psi between a planet's orbital axis and the spin axis of its parent star. In general, psi cannot be measured, but for transiting planets one…
Inferring planetary parameters from transit timing variations is challenging for small exoplanets because their transits may be so weak that determination of individual transit timing is difficult or impossible. We implement a useful…
We report on a new method for tracking the phases of the orbital modulations in very short-period, near-contact, and contact binary systems systems in order to follow starspots. We apply this technique to Kepler light curves for 414 binary…
It is believed that some numerical technique must be employed for the determination of the system parameters of a visual binary or a star with a planet because the relevant equations are not only highly nonlinear but also transcendental…
Solar system planets move on almost circular orbits. In strong contrast, many massive gas giant exoplanets travel on highly elliptical orbits, whereas the shape of the orbits of smaller, more terrestrial, exoplanets remained largely…
We investigate the prospects for characterizing extrasolar giant planets by measuring planetary oblateness from transit photometry and inferring planetary rotational periods. The rotation rates of planets in the solar system vary widely,…
Currently, over forty transiting planets have been discovered by ground-based photometric surveys, and space-based missions like Kepler and CoRoT are expected to detect hundreds more. Follow-up photometric observations from the ground will…
We present a comprehensive analysis of planetary phase variations, including possible planetary light offsets, using eighteen quarters of data from the Kepler space telescope. After correcting for systematics, we found fourteen systems with…
Transiting planets manifest themselves by a periodic dimming of their host star by a fixed amount. On the other hand, light curves of transiting circumbinary (CB) planets are expected to be neither periodic nor to have a single depth while…
When fitting transiting exoplanet lightcurves, it is usually desirable to have ranges and/or priors for the parameters which are to be retrieved that include our degree of knowledge (or ignorance) in the routines which are being used. In…
Light curves of microlensing events involving stellar binaries and planetary systems can provide information about the orbital elements of the system due to orbital modulations of the caustic structure. Accurately measuring the orbit in…
We define and analyze the photometric orbit (PhO) of an extrasolar planet observed in reflected light. In our definition, the PhO is a Keplerian entity with six parameters: semimajor axis, eccentricity, mean anomaly at some particular time,…
The transit method is one of the most relevant exoplanet detection techniques, which consists of detecting periodic eclipses in the light curves of stars. This is not always easy due to the presence of noise in the light curves, which is…
It has been previously shown that moons of extrasolar planets may be detectable with the Kepler Mission, for moon masses above ~0.2 Earth masses Kipping et al. 2009c. Transit timing effects have been formerly identified as a potent tool to…