Related papers: Using long-term transit timing to detect terrestri…
Short and ultra-short planets are a peculiar type of exoplanets with periods as short as a few days or less. Although it is challenging to detect them, already several are observed with many additional candidates. If these planets have…
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…
The Kepler Mission has detected dozens of compact planetary systems with more than four transiting planets. This sample provides a collection of close-packed planetary systems with relatively little spread in the inclination angles of the…
Of the fourteen transiting extrasolar planetary systems for which radii have been measured, at least three appear to be considerably larger than theoretical estimates suggest. It has been proposed by Bodenheimer, Lin & Mardling that…
We study how close-in systems such as those detected by Kepler are affected by the dynamics of bodies in the outer system. We consider two scenarios: outer systems of giant planets potentially unstable to planet--planet scattering, and wide…
The observed properties of transiting exoplanets are an exceptionally rich source of information that allows us to understand and characterize their physical properties. Unfortunately, only a relatively small fraction of the known…
Determining the orbital eccentricity of an extrasolar planet is critically important for understanding the system's dynamical environment and history. However, eccentricity is often poorly determined or entirely mischaracterized due to poor…
We investigate the effect of planetary rotation on the transit spectrum of an extrasolar giant planet. During ingress and egress, absorption features arising from the planet's atmosphere are Doppler shifted by of order the planet's…
We present a method to confirm the planetary nature of objects in systems with multiple transiting exoplanet candidates. This method involves a Fourier-Domain analysis of the deviations in the transit times from a constant period that…
We ask if Earth-like planets (terrestrial mass and habitable-zone orbit) can be detected in multi-planet systems, using astrometric and radial velocity observations. We report here the preliminary results of double-blind calculations…
This thesis focuses on the detection of extrasolar planets via the transit method, and more specifically addresses issues relevant to the preparation of upcoming space missions such as CoRoT, Kepler, Eddington, aiming to detect terrestrial…
The radial velocity method for detecting extra-solar planets relies on measuring the star's wobble around the system's center of mass. Since this is an indirect method, we may ask if there are other dynamical effects that can mimic such…
The eccentricity distribution of exoplanets is known from radial velocity surveys to be divergent from circular orbits beyond 0.1 AU. This is particularly the case for large planets where the radial velocity technique is most sensitive. The…
The space mission PLATO will usher in a new era of exoplanetary science by expanding our current inventory of transiting systems and constraining host star ages, which are currently highly uncertain. This capability might allow PLATO to…
(Abridged) The solar system gas giant planets are oblate due to their rapid rotation. A measurement of the planet's projected oblateness would constrain the planet's rotational period. Planets that are synchronously rotating with their…
Moderately close binaries are a special class of targets for planet searches. From a theoretical standpoint, their hospitality to giant planets is uncertain and debated. From an observational standpoint, many of these systems present…
We examine the effect of secular perturbations by giant planets on systems of multiple, lower mass planets orbiting Sun-like stars. We simulate the effects of forcing both eccentricity and inclination, separately and together. We compare…
The Hubble Space Telescope is uniquely able to study planets that are observed to transit their parent stars. The extremely stable platform afforded by an orbiting spacecraft, free from the contaminating effects of the Earth's atmosphere,…
Among more than 200 extrasolar planet candidates discovered to date, there is no known planet orbiting around normal binary stars. In this paper, we demonstrate that microlensing is a technique that can detect such planets. Microlensing…
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…