Related papers: Where does the simplified Stellar Contamination Mo…
The characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres via transit spectroscopy is based on the comparison between the stellar spectrum filtered through the atmosphere and the unadulterated spectrum from the occulted stellar region. The…
Chromospherically sensitive atomic lines display different spectra in stellar active regions, spots, and the photosphere, raising the possibility that exoplanet transmission spectra are contaminated by the contrast between various portions…
Transmission spectroscopy characterizes the wavelength dependence of transit depth, revealing atmospheric absorption features in planetary terminator regions. In this context, different optical transmission spectra of HAT-P-12b reported in…
One of the main science motivations for the ESA PLAnetary Transit and Oscillations (PLATO) mission is to measure exoplanet transit radii with 3% precision. In addition to flares and starspots, stellar oscillations and granulation will…
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…
We present a ground-based optical transmission spectrum for the warm Saturn-mass exoplanet WASP-110b from two transit observations made with the FOcal Reducer and Spectrograph (FORS2) on the Very Large Telescope (VLT). The spectrum covers…
Magnetic features on the surface of stars, such as spots and faculae, cause stellar spectral variability on time-scales of days and longer. For stars other than the Sun, the spectral signatures of faculae are poorly understood, limiting our…
Stellar limb darkening is the observed variation in brightness of a star between its centre and edge (or limb) when viewed in the plane of the sky. Stellar brightness is maximal at the centre and then decreases radially and monotonically…
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the Kepler space mission observed a large number of planetary transits showing anomalies due to starspot eclipses, with more such observations expected in the near future by the K2 mission and the…
Context. We present a model-free method for mapping surface brightness variations. Aims. We aim to develop a method that is not dependent on either stellar atmosphere models or limb-darkening equation. This method is optimized for exoplanet…
Technological advances in instrumentation have led to an exponential increase in exoplanet detection and scrutiny of stellar features such as spots and faculae. While the spots and faculae enable us to understand the stellar dynamics,…
Some close binaries of the beta Lyrae type show photometric cycles longer than the orbital one, which are possibly related to changes in their accretion disks. We aim to understand the short- and long-scale changes observed in the light…
We report transmission spectroscopy of the bloated hot Jupiter WASP-74b in the wavelength range from 4000 to 6200 \r{A}. We observe two transit events with the Very Large Telescope FOcal Reducer and Spectrograph (VLT FORS2) and present a…
The detection of the first exoplanet paved the way into the era of transit photometry space missions with a revolutionary photometric precision that aim at discovering new exoplanetary systems around different types of stars. With this high…
Detailed atmospheric characterization of exoplanets by transmission spectroscopy requires careful consideration of stellar surface inhomogeneities induced by starspots. This effect is particularly problematic for planetary systems around…
Data-driven models of stellar spectra are useful tools to study non-stellar information, such as the Diffuse Interstellar Bands (DIBs) caused by intervening interstellar material. Using $\sim 55000$ spectra of $\sim 17000$ red clump stars…
The ability to observe extrasolar planets transiting their stars has profoundly changed our understanding of these planetary systems. However, these measurements depend on how well we understand the properties of the host star, such as…
Recently, Currie et al. simulated the detection of molecules in the atmospheres of temperate rocky exoplanets transiting nearby M-dwarf stars. They simulated detections via spectral cross-correlation applied to high resolution optical and…
Limb-darkening is fundamental in determining transit lightcurve shapes, and is typically modeled by a variety of laws that parametrize the intensity profile of the star that is being transited. Confronted with a transit lightcurve, some…
Stellar limb darkening must be properly accounted for to accurately determine the radii of exoplanets at various wavelengths. The standard approach to address limb darkening involves either using laws with coefficients from modelled stellar…