Related papers: Phase light curves for extrasolar Jupiters and Sat…
We point out some advantages of making observations of extrasolar planets in linearly polarized (LP) light. Older cool stars have quite low levels (~ 10^-4 to 10^-5) of fractional LP, while extrasolar planets can have relatively high…
Rapid planetary rotation can cause the equilibrium shape of a planet to be oblate. While planetary oblateness has mostly been probed by examining the subtle ingress and egress features in photometric transit light curves, we investigate the…
Hot Jupiters are a class of extrasolar planet that orbit their parent stars at very short distances. Due to their close proximity, they are expected to be tidally locked, which can lead to a large temperature difference between their day…
We calculate simulated images of disks perturbed by embedded small planets. These 10-50 M_Earth bodies represent the growing cores of giant planets. We examine scattered light and thermal emission from these disks over a range of…
Recent work suggests that many short-period extrasolar planets may have spin obliquities that are significantly tilted with respect to their orbital planes. These large obliquities are a natural outcome of ``secular spin-orbit resonance'',…
We derive solutions to transit light curves of exoplanets orbiting rapidly-rotating stars. These stars exhibit significant oblateness and gravity darkening, a phenomenon where the poles of the star have a higher temperature and luminosity…
We discuss the interpretation of distortions to stellar spectral lines with particular attention to line bisectors in the presence of an orbiting planetary companion. We present a simple model whereby light reflected by the companion can…
We have created a general methodology for calculating the wavelength-dependent light curves of close-in extrasolar giant planets (EGPs) as they traverse their orbits. Focussing on the transiting EGPs HD189733b, TrES-1, and HD209458b, we…
Under the current microlensing planet search strategy of monitoring events caused by stellar-mass lenses, only planets located within a narrow region of separations from central stars can be effectively detected. However, with the dramatic…
During the last few years our knowledge about the X-ray emission from bodies within the solar system has significantly improved. Several new solar system objects are now known to shine in X-rays at energies below 2 keV. Apart from the Sun,…
Exoplanet surveys have confirmed one of humanity's (and all teenagers') worst fears: we are weird. If our Solar System were observed with present-day Earth technology -- to put our system and exoplanets on the same footing -- Jupiter is the…
Multi-band phase variations in principle allow us to infer the longitudinal temperature distributions of planets as a function of height in their atmospheres. For example, 3.6 micron emission originates from deeper layers of the atmosphere…
The nearly circular (mean eccentricity <e>~0.06) and coplanar (mean mutual inclination <i>~3 deg) orbits of the Solar System planets motivated Kant and Laplace to put forth the hypothesis that planets are formed in disks, which has…
Many of the directly imaged self-luminous gas giant exoplanets have been found to have cloudy atmospheres. Scattering of the emergent thermal radiation from these planets by the dust grains in their atmospheres should locally give rise to…
The direct detection of exoplanets has been the subject of intensive research in the recent years. Data obtained with future high-contrast imaging instruments optimized for giant planets direct detection are strongly limited by the speckle…
Using a 3D GCM, we create dynamical model atmospheres of a representative transiting giant exoplanet, HD 209458b. We post-process these atmospheres with an opacity code to obtain transit radius spectra during the primary transit. Using a…
As an exoplanet orbits its host star it reflects and emits light, forming a distinctive phase curve. By observing this light, we can study the atmosphere and surface of distant planets. The planets in our Solar System show a wide range of…
The origin of rings around giant planets remains elusive. Saturn's rings are massive and made of 90-95% of water ice. In contrast, the much less massive rings of Uranus and Neptune are dark and likely to have higher rock fraction. Here we…
Hypothetical influences of variability of light velocity due to the parameters of the source of radiation, for the results of spectral measurements of stars to search for exoplanets are considered. Accounting accelerations of stars relative…
Context: Planets outside our solar system transiting their host star, i. e. those with an orbital inclination near 90 degree, are of special interest to derive physical properties of extrasolar planets. With the knowledge of the host star's…