Related papers: Planet Eclipse Mapping with Long-Term Baseline Dri…
Ground-based observations of exoplanet eclipses provide important clues to the planets' atmospheric physics, yet systematics in light curve analyses are not fully understood. It is unknown if measurements suggesting near-infrared flux…
Eclipsing planetary systems give us an important window on extrasolar planet atmospheres. By measuring the depth of the secondary eclipse, when the planet moves behind the star, we can estimate the strength of the thermal emission from the…
Planets emit thermal radiation and reflect incident light that they recieve from their host stars. As a planet orbits it's host star the photometric variations associated with these two effects produce very similar phase curves. If observed…
When we are fortunate enough to view an exoplanetary system nearly edge-on, the star and planet periodically eclipse each other. Observations of eclipses (transits and occultations) provide a bonanza of information that cannot be obtained…
Secondary eclipses and phase curves reveal information about the reflectivity and heat distribution in exoplanet atmospheres. The phase curve is composed of a combination of reflected, and thermally emitted light from the planet, and for…
We introduce a new method of searching for and characterizing extra-solar planets. We show that by monitoring the center-of-light motion of microlensing alerts using the next generation of high precision astrometric instruments the…
We derive the first secondary eclipse map of an exoplanet, HD 189733b, based on Spitzer IRAC 8 micron data. We develop two complementary techniques for deriving the two dimensional planet intensity: regularized slice mapping and spherical…
Most detected transiting planets have orbits which would fit within the one of Mercury, exposing them to intense stellar irradiation and interactions that significantly alter their properties. In contrast, colder planets with longer orbital…
We present eclipse maps of the two-dimensional thermal emission from the dayside of the hot Jupiter WASP-43b, derived from an observation of a phase curve with the JWST MIRI/LRS instrument. The observed eclipse shapes deviate significantly…
The tomographic method "Physical Parameter Eclipse Mapping" is a tool to reconstruct spatial distributions of physical parameters (like temperatures and surface densities) in accretion discs of cataclysmic variables. After summarizing the…
We present exact analytic formulae for the eclipse of a star described by quadratic or nonlinear limb darkening. In the limit that the planet radius is less than a tenth of the stellar radius, we show that the exact lightcurve can be well…
Thermal light-curve analysis is a powerful approach to probe the thermal structures of exoplanetary atmospheres, which are greatly influenced by the planetary obliquity and eccentricity. Here we investigate the thermal light curves of…
We show that a consistent fit to observed secondary eclipse data for several strongly irradiated transiting planets demands a temperature inversion (stratosphere) at altitude. Such a thermal inversion significantly influences the…
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…
Eclipse mapping is a technique for inferring 2D brightness maps of transiting exoplanets from the shape of an eclipse light curve. With JWST's unmatched precision, eclipse mapping is now possible for a large number of exoplanets. However,…
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…
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 apply a new method of eclipse mapping to the light curves of eclipsing polars. The technique aims to locate the bright emission associated with the accretion stream, using a technique that makes the fewest prior assumptions about the…
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…
Main-sequence stars earlier than spectral type ~F6 or so are expected to rotate rapidly due to their radiative exteriors. This rapid rotation leads to an oblate stellar figure. It also induces the photosphere to be hotter (by up to several…