Related papers: Accurate and efficient photo-eccentric transit mod…

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…

Searching for transits provides a very promising technique for finding close-in extra-solar planets. Transiting planets present the advantage of allowing one to determine physical properties such as mass and radius unambiguously. The…

In this PhD dissertation, I discuss issues of the Radial Velocities (RV) and transit methods. These techniques allow us to derive the mass and radius of an exoplanet, necessary to model its bulk structure and to have insight on its…

We present the eccentricity distribution of warm sub-Saturns (4-8 Re, 8-200 day periods) as derived from an analysis of transit light curves from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission. We use the "photoeccentric"…

Precise exoplanet characterization requires precise classification of exoplanet host stars. The masses of host stars are commonly estimated by comparing their spectra to those predicted by stellar evolution models. However,…

Context: Transit or eclipse timing variations have proven to be a valuable tool in exoplanet research. However, no simple way to estimate the potential precision of such timing measures has been presented yet, nor are guidelines available…

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite will conduct a 2-year long wide-field survey searching for transiting planets around bright stars. Many TESS discoveries will be amenable to mass characterization via ground-based radial velocity…

The orbital parameters of extra-solar planets have a significant impact on the probability that the planet will transit the host star. This was recently demonstrated by the transit detection of HD 17156b whose favourable eccentricity and…

Context: Planets outside our solar system transiting their host star, i. e. those with an orbital inclination near 90 degree, are of special interest to derive physical properties of extrasolar planets. With the knowledge of the host star's…

When an extrasolar planet passes in front of its star (transits), its radius can be measured from the decrease in starlight and its orbital period from the time between transits. Multiple planets transiting the same star reveal more: period…

Transiting exoplanets in multi-planet systems exhibit non-Keplerian orbits as a result of the gravitational influence from companions which can cause the times and durations of transits to vary. The amplitude and periodicity of the transit…

Exoplanet transit events are attractive targets for the ultrahigh-resolution capabilities afforded by optical interferometers. The intersection of two developments in astronomy enable direct imaging of exoplanet transits: first,…

We present analytic estimates of the fractional uncertainties on the mass, radius, surface gravity, and density of a transiting planet, using only empirical or semi-empirical measurements. We first express these parameters in terms of…

Of the nearby transiting exoplanets that are amenable to detailed study, TrES-2 is both the most massive and has the largest impact parameter. We present z-band photometry of three transits of TrES-2. We improve upon the estimates of the…

Solar system, exoplanet and stellar science rely on transits, eclipses and occultations for dynamical and physical insight. Often, the geometry of these configurations are modelled by assuming a particular viewpoint. Here, instead, I derive…

From simulations of transit observations, it is found that the detectability of extrasolar planets depends only on two parameters: The signal-to-noise ratio during a transit, and the number of data points observed during transits. All other…

Continuing work initiated in an earlier publication [Sato and Asada, PASJ, 61, L29 (2009)], we consider light curves influenced by the orbital inclination and eccentricity of a companion in orbit around a transiting extrasolar planet (in a…

A unique analytical solution of planet and star parameters can be derived from an extrasolar planet transit light curve under a number of assumptions. This analytical solution can be used to choose the best planet transit candidates for…

Using the Spitzer Space Telescope, we observed a transit at 3.6um of KELT-11b (Pepper et al. 2017). We also observed three partial transits from the ground. We simultaneously fit these observations, ground-based photometry from Pepper et…

We present a theoretical analysis of the optical light curves (LCs) for short-period high-mass transiting extrasolar planet systems. Our method considers the primary transit, the secondary eclipse, and the overall phase shape of the LC…