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The detection and characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets is one of the chief goals of astrophysics for the coming decades. Imaging in reflected light is well suited for characterizing Earth-like planets, as much can be learned…
Our work examines the detectability of tidally distorted solid exoplanets in synchronous rotation. Previous work has shown that tidally distorted shapes of close-in gas giants can give rise to radius underestimates and subsequently density…
We propose a method for observing transiting exoplanets with near-infrared high-resolution spectrometers. We aim to create a robust data analysis method for recovering atmospheric transmission spectra from transiting exoplanets over a wide…
To date, a handful of exoplanets have been photometrically mapped using phase-modulated reflection or emission from their surfaces, but the small amplitudes of such signals have limited previous maps almost exclusively to coarse dipolar…
Gravitational microlensing is one of the methods to detect exoplanets; planets outside our solar system. Here we focus on theoretical modeling of three lens systems and in particular circumbinary systems. Circumbinary systems include two…
With about 700 confirmed extrasolar planets, it is time to move beyond discovery and towards characterization. Perhaps the most basic parameter of an extrasolar planet is its mass; however, this is very difficult to determine if the planet…
The analysis of exoplanetary atmospheres by means of high-resolution spectroscopy is an expanding research field which provides information on chemical composition, thermal structure, atmospheric dynamics and orbital velocity of exoplanets.…
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…
In the era of photometry with space-based telescopes, such as CHEOPS (CHaracterizing ExOPlanets Satellite), JWST (James Webb Space Telescope), PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars), and ARIEL (Atmospheric Remote-sensing…
We investigate spectra of airless rocky exoplanets with a theoretical framework that self-consistently treats reflection and thermal emission. We find that a silicate surface on an exoplanet is spectroscopically detectable via prominent…
With several detections, the technique of gravitational microlensing has proven useful for studying planets that orbit stars at Galactic distances, and it can even be applied to detect planets in neighbouring galaxies. So far, planet…
It is possible to learn a great deal about exoplanet atmospheres even when we cannot spatially resolve the planets from their host stars. In this chapter, we overview the basic techniques used to characterize transiting exoplanets -…
One of the great quests of astronomy is to obtain the spectrum of a terrestrial planet orbiting within the habitable zone of its star, and the dominant challenge in doing so is to isolate the light of the planet from that of the star.…
The microlensing technique has found 10 exoplanets to date and promises to discover more in the near future. While planetary transit light curves all show a familiar shape, planetary perturbations to microlensing light curves can manifest a…
The detection of massive planets orbiting nearby stars has become almost routine, but current techniques are as yet unable to detect terrestrial planets with masses comparable to the Earth's. Future space-based observatories to detect…
NASA's Kepler Mission promises to detect transiting Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of solar-like stars. In addition, it will be poised to detect the reflected light component from close-in extrasolar giant planets (CEGPs)…
CONTEXT. It is theoretically possible for rings to have formed around extrasolar planets in a similar way to that in which they formed around the giant planets in our solar system. However, no such rings have been detected to date. AIMS: We…
We explore the possibility that the transit signature of an Earth-size planet can be detected in spectroscopic velocity shifts via the Rossiter effect. Under optimistic but not unrealistic conditions, it should be possible to detect a large…
Planetary companions to the source stars of a caustic-crossing binary microlensing events can be detected via the deviation from the parent light curves created when the caustic magnifies the star light reflecting off the atmosphere or…
We study the spectrum of a planetary atmosphere to derive detectable features in low resolution of different global geochemical cycles on exoplanets - using the sulphur cycle as our example. We derive low resolution detectable features for…