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Study Analysis Group 21 (SAG21) of NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program Analysis Group (ExoPAG) was organized to study the effect of stellar contamination on space-based transmission spectroscopy, a method for studying exoplanetary…
Transmission spectroscopy during planetary transits, which is based on the measurements of the variations of planet-to-star radius ratio as a function of wavelength, is a powerful technique to study the atmospheric properties of transiting…
Stellar photospheric heterogeneities (e.g., starspots, faculae) distort the stellar spectrum in transit and imprint wavelength-dependent biases on the planet-to-star radius ratio (Transit Light Source Effect, TLSE). The Rackham-TLSE…
Transmission spectra are differential measurements that utilize stellar illumination to probe transiting exoplanet atmospheres. Any spectral difference between the illuminating light source and the disk-integrated stellar spectrum due to…
This paper is part of an effort to correct the transmission spectra of a transiting planet orbiting an active star. In Paper I (Cracchiolo et al. 2020) we have demonstrated a methodology to minimize the potential bias induced by unocculted…
Context. The characterization of exoplanets requires a good description of the host star. Stellar activity acts as a source of noise which can alter planet radii as derived from the transit depth or atmospheric characterization. Aims. Here,…
Exoplanet host star activity, in the form of unocculted star spots or faculae, alters the observed transmission and emission spectra of the exoplanet. This effect can be exacerbated when combining data from different epochs if the stellar…
The chromatic contamination that arises from photospheric heterogeneities e.g. spots and faculae on the host star presents a significant noise source for exoplanet transmission spectra. If this contamination is not corrected for, it can…
Transmission spectroscopy probes exoplanet atmospheres via the wavelength dependence of transit depths, but stellar contamination from magnetic activity can significantly bias these measurements. Activity-induced changes in the chromatic…
The properties of inhomogeneities on the surface of active stars (i.e. dark spots and bright faculae) significantly influence the determination of the parameters of an exoplanet. The chromatic effect they have on transmission spectroscopy…
One of the main endeavors of the field of exoplanetary sciences is the characterization of exoplanet atmospheres on a population level. The current method of choice to accomplish this task is transmission spectroscopy, where the apparent…
This paper examines how to compare stellar limb-darkening coefficients evaluated from model atmospheres with those derived from photometry. Different characterizations of a given model atmosphere can give quite different numerical results…
Transmission spectroscopy is a promising tool for the atmospheric characterization of transiting exoplanets. Because the planetary signal is faint, discrepancies have been reported regarding individual targets. We investigate the dependence…
Transmission spectra probe the atmospheres of transiting exoplanets, but these observations are also subject to signals introduced by magnetic active regions on host stars. Here we outline scientific opportunities in the next decade for…
The impact of unocculted stellar surface heterogeneities in the form of cool spots and hot faculae on the spectrum of a transiting planet has been a daunting problem for the characterization of exoplanet atmospheres. The…
Transmission spectroscopy is currently the technique best suited to study a wide range of planetary atmospheres, leveraging the filtering of a star's light by a planet's atmosphere rather than its own emission. However, as both a planet and…
Transmission spectroscopy during planetary transits is expected to be a major source of information on the atmospheres of small (approximately Earth-sized) exoplanets in the next two decades. This technique, however, is intrinsically…
We study how the precision of the exoplanet radius determination is affected by our present knowledge of limb darkening in two cases: when we fix the limb darkening coefficients and when we adjust them. We also investigate the effects of…
Limb-resolved transmission spectroscopy has the potential to transform our understanding of exoplanetary atmospheres. By separately measuring the transmission spectra of the evening and morning limbs, these atmospheric regions can be…
Stellar photospheric heterogeneity is a dominant astrophysical systematic impacting exoplanet transmission spectroscopy. NASA's Pandora SmallSat Mission is designed to address this challenge through contemporaneous visible photometry and…