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Exoplanet atmosphere characterization has seen revolutionary advances over the last few years, providing us with unique insights into atmospheric chemistry, dynamics and planet formation mechanisms. However, true solar system analog planets…
The weak orbital-phase dependent reflection signal of an exoplanet contains information on the planet surface, such as the distribution of continents and oceans on terrestrial planets. This light curve is usually studied in the time domain,…
The physical characteristics and atmospheric chemical composition of newly discovered exoplanets are often inferred from their transit spectra which are obtained from complex numerical models of radiative transfer. Alternatively, simple…
In anticipation of future flagship missions focused on the goal of achieving direct imaging of rocky exoplanets, we have developed a database of models to help the community examine the potential spectral characteristics of a broad range of…
Colour-magnitude diagrams form a traditional way of presenting luminous objects in the Universe and compare them to each others. Here, we estimate the photometric distance of 44 transiting exoplanetary systems. Parallaxes for seven systems…
The polarization state of starlight reflected by a planetary atmosphere uniquely reveals coverage, particle size, and composition of aerosols as well as changing cloud patterns. It is not possible to obtain a comparable level of detailed…
The discovery of planets orbiting stars other than the Sun has accelerated over the past decade, and this trend will continue as new space- and ground-based observatories employ next-generation instrumentation to search the skies for…
The combination of high-contrast imaging and medium to high spectral resolution spectroscopy offers new possibilities for the detection and characterization of exoplanets. The molecular mapping technique uses the difference between the…
We typically measure the radii of transiting exoplanets from the transit depth, which is given by the ratio of cross-sectional areas of the planet and star. However, if a star has dark starspots (or bright regions) distributed throughout…
Atmospheric characterization of Earth-like exoplanets through reflected light spectroscopy is a key goal for upcoming direct imaging missions. A critical challenge in this endeavor is the accurate determination of planetary mass, which may…
The detection of Earth-like exoplanets in the habitable zone of their stars, and their spectroscopic characterization in a search for biosignatures, requires starlight suppression that exceeds the current best ground-based performance by…
Planets can emit polarized thermal radiation, just like brown dwarfs. We present calculated thermal polarization signals from hot exoplanets, using an advanced radiative transfer code that fully includes all orders of scattering by gaseous…
Understanding a planet's atmosphere is a necessary condition for understanding not only the planet itself, but also its formation, structure, evolution, and habitability, This puts a premium on obtaining spectra, and developing credible…
Context. Kepler observations have revealed a class of short period exoplanets, of which Kepler-1520 b is the prototype, which have comet-like dust tails thought to be the result of small, rocky planets losing mass. The shape and…
Direct imaging and spectroscopy is the likely means by which we will someday identify, confirm, and characterize an Earth-like planet around a nearby Sun-like star. This Chapter summarizes the current state of knowledge regarding…
We present an analysis of high-resolution imaging of an exoplanet by a meter-class telescope positioned at a real image of the exoplanet created by the solar gravity lens. We assume an exoplanet viewed in full phase and a simple…
Static structure models, which map mass-radius constraints to bulk planet composition, are frequently used to categorise exoplanets due to their computational efficiency and the high-level insight they offer into planetary properties.…
We are now on a clear trajectory for improvements in exoplanet observations that will revolutionize our ability to characterize their atmospheric structure, composition, and circulation, from gas giants to rocky planets. However, exoplanet…
In this study, we treat Earth as an exoplanet and investigate our home planet by means of a potential future mid-infrared (MIR) space mission called the Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE). We combine thermal spectra from an…
The circular polarization of light that planets reflect is often neglected because it is very small compared to the linear polarization. It could, however, provide information on a planet's atmosphere and surface, and on the presence of…