Related papers: First Planet Confirmation with a Dispersed Fixed-D…
Extra-solar planets can be efficiently detected in gravitational microlensing events of high magnification. High accuracy photometry is required over a short, well-defined time interval only, of order 10-30 hours. Most planets orbiting the…
The detection of transits is an efficient technique to uncover faint companions around stars. The full characterisation of the companions (M-type stars, brown dwarfs or exoplanets) requires high-resolution spectroscopy to measure properly…
Experience in exploring our own solar system has shown that direct investigation of planetary bodies using space probes invariably yields scientific knowledge not otherwise obtainable. In the case of exoplanets, such direct investigation…
Radial velocity identification of extrasolar planets has historically been dominated by optical surveys. Interest in expanding exoplanet searches to M dwarfs and young stars, however, has motivated a push to improve the precision of near…
The direct observation of cold and temperate planets within 1 to 10 AU would be extremely valuable for uncovering their atmospheric compositions but remains a formidable challenge with current astronomical methods. Ground-based optical…
We present a novel method for direct detection and characterization of exoplanets from space. This method uses four collecting telescopes, combined with phase chopping and a spectrometer, with observations on only a few baselines rather…
Determining the occurrence rate of terrestrial-mass planets (m_p < 10M_earth) is a critically important step on the path towards determining the frequency of Earth-like planets (eta-Earth), and hence the uniqueness of our Solar system.…
Cross-correlation is a well-tested method for exoplanet characterization. A new, potentially powerful application is the measurement of atmospheric isotope ratios. In particular D/H can give unique insights into a planet's formation and…
Among various techniques to search for extra-solar planets, microlensing has some unique characteristics. Contrary to all other methods which favour nearby objects, microlensing is sensitive to planets around stars at distances of several…
Most exoplanets have been discovered via radial velocity studies, which are inherently insensitive to orbital inclination. Interferometric observations will show evidence of a stellar companion if it sufficiently bright, regardless of the…
The 'holy grail' of exoplanet research today is the detection of an earth-like planet: a rocky planet in the habitable zone around a main-sequence star. Extremely precise Doppler spectroscopy is an indispensable tool to find and…
Directly imaging extrasolar planets using a monolithic optical telescope avoids many pitfalls of space interferometry and opens up the prospect of visible light studies of extrasolar planetary systems. Future astronomical missions may…
The detection of Earth-size exoplanets is a technological and data analysis challenge. Future progress in Earth-mass exoplanet detection is expected from the development of extreme precision radial velocity measurements. Increasing radial…
Exoplanet transit events are attractive targets for the ultrahigh-resolution capabilities afforded by optical interferometers. The intersection of two developments in astronomy enable direct imaging of exoplanet transits: first,…
We present the first systematic search for GHz frequency radio emission from directly imaged exoplanets using Very Large Array (VLA) observations of sufficient angular resolution to separate the planets from their host stars. We obtained…
High-precision spectrographs play a key role in exoplanet searches and Doppler asteroseismology using the radial velocity technique. The 1 m/s level of precision requires very high stability and uniformity of the illumination of the…
Context. The pioneer space mission for photometric planet searches, CoRoT, steadily monitors about 12,000 stars in each of its fields of view; it is able to detect transit candidates early in the processing of the data and before the end of…
Despite numerous search campaigns based on a diverse set of observational techniques, exomoons - prospective satellites of extrasolar planets - remain an elusive and hard-to-pin-down class of objects. Yet, the case for intensifying this…
(Abridged) Aims: Systematic surveys to search for exoplanets have been mostly dedicated to solar-type stars sofar. We developed in 2004 a method to extend such searches to earlier A-F type dwarfs and started spectroscopic surveys to search…
We present Kepler exoplanet occurrence rates for planets between $0.5-16$ R$_\oplus$ and between $1-400$ days. To measure occurrence, we use a non-parametric method via a kernel density estimator and use bootstrap random sampling for…