Related papers: PLANET II: A Microlensing and Transit Search for E…

We evaluate gravitational lensing as a technique for the detection of extrasolar moons. Since 2004 gravitational microlensing has been successfully applied as a detection method for extrasolar planets. In principle, the method is sensitive…

Thousands of exoplanets have been discovered and the search for life outside Earth is at the forefront of astrophysical research. The planets we observe show a mind-blowing diversity that current theories strive to explain as part of the…

In the coming decades, research in extrasolar planets aims to advance two goals: 1) detecting and characterizing low-mass planets increasingly similar to the Earth, and 2) improving our understanding of planet formation. We present a new…

So far, most of the about 5700 exoplanets have been discovered mainly with radial velocity and transit methods. These techniques are sensitive to planets in close orbits, not being able to probe large star--planet separations. $\mu$-lensing…

The most successful method used so far to search for extrasolar planets is the radial velocity technique, where periodical shifts on the measured emission from a star provide evidence for an orbiting planet. This method has been used on…

One core goal of the Kepler mission was to determine the frequency of Earth-like planets that orbit Sun-like stars. Accurately estimating this planet occurrence rate requires both a well-vetted list of planets and a clear understanding of…

Exoplanets number in their thousands, and the number is ever increasing with the advent of new surveys and improved instrumentation. One of the most surprising things we have learnt from these discoveries is not that small-rocky planets in…

Since planets were first discovered outside our own Solar System in 1992 (around a pulsar) and in 1995 (around a main sequence star), extrasolar planet studies have become one of the most dynamic research fields in astronomy. Now that more…

Prior to the 1990s, speculations about the occurrence of planets around other stars were based only on planet formation theory, observations of circumstellar disks, and the knowledge that at least one seemingly ordinary star is the host of…

We search for signatures of planets in 43 intensively monitored microlensing events that were observed between 1995 and 1999. Planets would be expected to cause a short duration (~1 day) deviation on the smooth, symmetric light curve…

One of the persistent complications in searches for transiting exoplanets is the low percentage of the detected candidates that ultimately prove to be planets, which significantly increases the load on the telescopes used for the follow-up…

We revisit the possibility of detecting an extrasolar planet around a background star as it crosses the fold caustic of a foreground binary lens. During such an event, the planet's flux can be magnified by a factor of ~100 or more. The…

The discovery of over 200 extrasolar planets with the radial velocity (RV) technique has revealed that many giant planets have large eccentricities, in striking contrast with most of the planets in the solar system and prior theories of…

Microlensing planets occurring on faint source stars can escape detection due to their weak signals. Occasionally, detections of such planets are not reported due to the difficulty of extracting high-profile scientific issues on the…

We present the discovery of a planet on a very wide orbit in the microlensing event OGLE-2012-BLG-0838. The signal of the planet is well separated from the main peak of the event and the planet-star projected separation is found to be twice…

In 1998 the EXPORT team monitored microlensing event lightcurves using a CCD camera on the IAC 0.8m telescope on Tenerife to evaluate the prospect of using northern telescopes to find microlens anomalies that reveal planets orbiting the…

If planetary systems are ubiquitous then a fraction of stars should possess a transiting planet when being microlensed. This paper presents a study of the influence of such planets on microlensing light curves. For the giant planets…

Microlensing is proving to be one of the best techniques to detect distant, low-mass planets around the most common stars in the Galaxy. In principle, Earth's microlensing signal could offer the chance for other technological civilisations…

Observations of the gravitational microlensing event MOA 2003-BLG-32/OGLE 2003-BLG-219 are presented for which the peak magnification was over 500, the highest yet reported. Continuous observations around the peak enabled a sensitive search…

Though free-floating planets (FFPs) may outpopulate their bound counterparts in the terrestrial-mass range, they remain one of the least explored exoplanet demographics. Due to their negligible electromagnetic emission at all wavelengths,…