Related papers: Prospects for Spectroscopic Reflected-light Planet…
Close-in extrasolar giant planets may be directly detectable by their reflected light, due to the proximity of the planet to the illuminating star. The spectrum of the system will contain a reflected light component that varies in amplitude…
The direct detection of reflected light from exoplanets is an excellent probe for the characterization of their atmospheres. The greatest challenge for this task is the low planet-to-star flux ratio, which even in the most favourable case…
Using improved doppler tomographic signal-analysis techniques we have carried out a deep search for starlight reflected from the giant planet orbiting the star Tau Bootis. We combined echelle spectra secured at the 4.2 m William Herschel…
At optical wavelengths, an exoplanet's signature is essentially reflected light from the host star - several orders of magnitude fainter. Since it is superimposed on the star spectrum its detection has been a difficult observational…
NASA's Kepler Mission promises to detect transiting Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of solar-like stars. In addition, it will be poised to detect the reflected light component from close-in extrasolar giant planets (CEGPs)…
A space telescope capable of high-contrast imaging has been recognized as the avenue toward finding terrestrial planets around nearby Sun-like stars and characterizing their potential habitability. It is thus essential to quantify the…
We explored two aspects of the problem of characterizing cool extrasolar giant planets in scattered optical light with a space based coronagraph. First, for a number of the known radial velocity (RV) giants we computed traditional forward…
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…
Aims. We attempt to detect starlight reflected from the hot Jupiter orbiting the main-sequence star Tau Boo, in order to determine the albedo of the planetary atmosphere, the orbital inclination of the planetary system and the exact mass of…
We have used a doppler tomographic analysis to conduct a deep search for the starlight reflected from the planetary companion to HD 75289. In 4 nights on VLT2/UVES in January 2003, we obtained 684 high resolution echelle spectra with a…
The planet orbiting tau Boo at a separation of 0.046 AU could produce a reflected light flux as bright as 1e-4 relative to that of the star. A spectrum of the system will contain a reflected light component which varies in amplitude and…
In data from three clear nights of a WHT/UES run in 2000 Oct/Nov, and using improved Doppler tomographic signal-analysis techniques, we have carried out a deep search for starlight reflected from the innermost of upsilon And's three…
Exoplanet research has shown an incessant growth since the first claim of a hot giant planet around a solar-like star in the mid-1990s. Today, the new facilities are working to spot the first habitable rocky planets around low-mass stars as…
Planned astronomical observatories of the 2020s will be capable of obtaining reflected light photometry and spectroscopy of cool extrasolar giant planets. Here we explain that such data are valuable both for understanding the origin and…
The search for life in the universe is currently focused on Earth-analog planets. However, we should be prepared to find a diversity of terrestrial exoplanets not only in terms of host star but also in terms of surface environment.…
Future space-based direct imaging missions will perform low-resolution (R$<$100) optical (0.3-1~$\mu$m) spectroscopy of planets, thus enabling reflected spectroscopy of cool giants. Reflected light spectroscopy is encoded with rich…
Transmission spectroscopy has proven to be an effective technique for characterizing exoplanet atmospheres. However, transmission spectroscopy requires planetary transits, which occur for only a small fraction of planetary systems due to…
The analysis of exoplanetary atmospheres by means of high-resolution spectroscopy is an expanding research field which provides information on chemical composition, thermal structure, atmospheric dynamics and orbital velocity of exoplanets.…
It is challenging to measure the starlight reflected from exoplanets because of the extreme contrast with their host stars. For hot Jupiters, this contrast is in the range of $10^{-6}$ to $10^{-4}$, depending on their albedo, radius and…
Direct imaging of exoplanets will allow us to directly observe the planet in reflected light. Such a scenario may eventually allow for the possibility to scan the planetary surface for the presence of artificial structures made by alien…