Related papers: Planetary transits and stellar variability
(Abridged) Space missions to search for exo-planets via the transit method, such as COROT, Eddington and Kepler, will need to address problems associated with the automated and efficient detection of planetary transits in light curves…
Context. Transit detection algorithms are mathematical tools used for detecting planets in the photometric data of transit surveys. In this work we study their application to space-based surveys. Aims: Space missions are exploring the…
We have developed a new method to improve the transit detection of Earth-sized planets in front of solar-like stars by fitting stellar microvariability by means of a spot model. A large Monte Carlo numerical experiment has been designed to…
Transiting planet systems offer an unique opportunity to observationally constrain proposed models of the interiors (radius, composition) and atmospheres (chemistry, dynamics) of extrasolar planets. The spectacular successes of ground-based…
The detection of planetary transits in stellar photometric light-curves is poised to become the main method for finding substantial numbers of terrestrial planets. The French-European mission COROT (foreseen for launch in 2005) will perform…
Context. Detecting regular dips in the light curve of a star is an easy way to detect the presence of an orbiting planet. COROT is a Franco-European mission launched at the end of 2006, and one of its main objectives is to detect planetary…
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…
From simulations of transit observations, it is found that the detectability of extrasolar planets depends only on two parameters: The signal-to-noise ratio during a transit, and the number of data points observed during transits. All other…
The search for extrasolar planets is strongly motivated by the goal of characterizing how frequent habitable worlds and life may be within the Galaxy. Whilst much effort has been spent on searching for Earth-like planets, large moons may…
We investigate the improved detection of extrasolar planets around eclipsing binaries using eclipse minima timing, and extrasolar moons around transiting planets using transit timing, offered by the upcoming COROT (ESA, 2005), Kepler (NASA,…
The space mission CoRoT (COnvection, ROtation and planetary Transits) will offer the possibility to detect extrasolar planets by means of the transit method. The satellite will observe about 60000 targets in the range 11.0<V<16.0, located…
NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has successfully discovered thousands of exoplanet candidates using the transit method, including hundreds of stars with multiple transiting planets. In order to estimate the frequency of these valuable…
We analyze the properties of searches devoted to finding planetary transits by observing simple stellar systems, such as globular clusters, open clusters, and the Galactic bulge. We develop the analytic tools necessary to predict the number…
Among the group of extrasolar planets, transiting planets provide a great opportunity to obtain direct measurements for the basic physical properties, such as mass and radius of these objects. These planets are therefore highly important in…
A large fraction of the smallest transiting planet candidates discovered by the Kepler and CoRoT space missions cannot be confirmed by a dynamical measurement of the mass using currently available observing facilities. To establish their…
We describe a project (transitsearch.org) currently attempting to discover transiting intermediate-period planets orbiting bright parent stars, and we simulate that project's performance. The discovery of such a transit would be an…
The idea of finding extrasolar planets (ESPs) through observations of drops in stellar brightness due to transiting objects has been around for decades. It has only been in the last ten years, however, that any serious attempts to find ESPs…
The detrending algorithms which are widely used to reduce the impact of stellar variability on space-based transit surveys are ill-suited for estimating the parameters of confirmed planets, as they unavoidably alter the transit signal. We…
In the blooming field of exoplanetary science, NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has revolutionized our understanding of exoplanets. Kepler's very precise and long-duration photometry is ideal for detecting planetary transits around Sun-like…
Transits of bright stars offer a unique opportunity to study detailed properties of extrasolar planets that cannot be determined through radial-velocity observations. We propose a new technique to find such systems using all-sky…