Related papers: Extrasolar Terrestrial Planets: Can We Detect Them…
We propose that the presence of additional planets in extrasolar planetary systems can be detected by long-term transit timing studies. If a transiting planet is on an eccentric orbit then the presence of another planet causes a secular…
In this paper, we study the feasibility of obtaining near-infrared spectra of bright extrasolar planets with the 2nd generation VLTI Spectro-Imager instrument (VSI), which has the required angular resolution to resolve nearby hot Extrasolar…
The Microlensing Planet Finder (MPF) is a proposed Discovery mission that will complete the first census of extrasolar planets with sensitivity to planets like those in our own solar system. MPF will employ a 1.1m aperture telescope, which…
While radial velocity surveys have demonstrated that the population of gas giants peaks around $3~\text{au}$, the most recent high-contrast imaging surveys have only been sensitive to planets beyond $\sim~10~\text{au}$. Sensitivity at small…
The upcoming launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will dramatically increase our understanding of exoplanets, particularly through direct imaging. Microlensing and radial velocity surveys indicate that some M-dwarfs host long…
Transit and radial velocity searches are two techniques for identifying nearby extrasolar planets to Earth that transit bright stars. Identifying a robust sample of these exoplanets around bright stars for detailed atmospheric…
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 detection of small exoplanets with the radial velocity (RV) technique is limited by various poorly known noise sources of instrumental and stellar origin. As a consequence, current detection techniques often fail to provide reliable…
Motivated by the development of high-dispersion spectrographs in the mid-infrared (MIR) range, we study their application to the atmospheric characterization of nearby non-transiting temperate terrestrial planets around M-type stars. We…
Detecting and confirming terrestrial planets is incredibly difficult due to their tiny size and mass relative to Sun-like host stars. However, recent instrumental advancements are making the detection of Earth-like exoplanets…
By targeting nearby M dwarfs, a transit search using modest equipment is capable of discovering planets as small as 2 Earth radii in the habitable zones of their host stars. The MEarth Project, a future transit search, aims to employ a…
Radial velocities measured from near-infrared spectra are a potentially powerful tool to search for planets around cool stars and sub-stellar objects. However, no technique currently exists that yields near-infrared radial velocity…
Although the extra-solar planets discovered so far are of the giant, gaseous, type, the increased sensitivity of future surveys will result in the discovery of lower mass planets. The detection of O2 in the atmosphere of a rocky extra-solar…
The next generation of exoplanet-hunting spectrographs should deliver up to an order of magnitude improvement in radial velocity precision over the standard 1 m/s state of the art. This advance is critical for enabling the detection of…
We present first results of our planet search program using the 9.2 meter Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory to detect planets around M-type dwarf stars via high-precision radial velocity (RV) measurements. Although more…
(Abridged) The observed radial velocity (RV) eccentricity distribution for extrasolar planets in single-planet systems shows that a significant fraction of planets are eccentric ($e > 0.1$). Here we investigate the effects on an RV planet's…
Due to their extremely small luminosity compared to the stars they orbit, planets outside our own Solar System are extraordinarily difficult to detect directly in optical light. Careful photometric monitoring of distant stars, however, can…
The detection of planets around very low-mass stars with the radial velocity method is hampered by the fact that these stars are very faint at optical wavelengths where the most high-precision spectrometers operate. We investigate the…
Direct detection, also known as direct imaging, is a method for discovering and characterizing the atmospheres of planets at intermediate and wide separations. It is the only means of obtaining spectra of non-transiting exoplanets.…
While thousands of exoplanets have been confirmed, the known properties about individual discoveries remain sparse and depend on detection technique. To utilize more than a small section of the exoplanet dataset, tools need to be developed…