Related papers: Transiting Planet Simulations from the All Sky Ext…
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…
The initial task that confronted extrasolar-planet transit surveys was to monitor enough stars with sufficient photometric precision and complete phase coverage. Numerous searches have been pursued over the last few years. Among these…
When extrasolar planets are observed to transit their parent stars, we are granted unprecedented access to their physical properties. It is only for transiting planets that we are permitted direct estimates of the planetary masses and…
With about 700 confirmed extrasolar planets, it is time to move beyond discovery and towards characterization. Perhaps the most basic parameter of an extrasolar planet is its mass; however, this is very difficult to determine if the planet…
The Kepler Mission has discovered thousands of exoplanets and revolutionized our understanding of their population. This large, homogeneous catalog of discoveries has enabled rigorous studies of the occurrence rate of exoplanets and…
Observing extrasolar planetary transits is one of the only ways that we may infer the masses and radii of planets outside the Solar System. As such, the detections made by photometric transit surveys are one of the only foreseeable ways…
The EXPLORE Project is a series of searches for transiting extrasolar planets using large-format mosaic CCD cameras on 4-m class telescopes. Radial velocity follow-up is done on transiting planet candidates with 8--10m class telescopes. We…
Searching for transits provides a very promising technique for finding close-in extra-solar planets. Transiting planets present the advantage of allowing one to determine physical properties such as mass and radius unambiguously. The…
Population studies of Kepler's multi-planet systems have revealed a surprising degree of structure in their underlying architectures. Information from a detected transiting planet can be combined with a population model to make predictions…
(Abridged) We discuss the design considerations of the EXPLORE (EXtra-solar PLanet Occultation REsearch) project, a series of transiting planet searches using 4-m-class telescopes to continuously monitor a single field of stars in the…
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…
Transit and radial velocity searches are two techniques for identifying nearby extrasolar planets to Earth that transit bright stars. Identifying a robust sample of these exoplanets around bright stars for detailed atmospheric…
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…
The discovery of the first extra-solar planet surrounding a main-sequence star was announced in 1995, based on very precise radial velocity (Doppler) measurements. A total of 34 such planets were known by the end of March 2000, and their…
Exoplanets, or planets outside our own solar system, have long been of interest to astronomers; however, only in the past two decades have scientists had the technology to characterize and study planets so far away from us. With advanced…
Transiting exoplanets provide access to data to study the mass-radius relation and internal structure of extrasolar planets. Long-period transiting planets allow insight into planetary environments similar to the Solar System where, in…
The precise radial velocity technique is a cornerstone of exoplanetary astronomy. Astronomers measure Doppler shifts in the star's spectral features, which track the line-of/sight gravitational accelerations of a star caused by the planets…
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…
Owing to technological advances, the number of exoplanets discovered has risen dramatically in the last few years. However, when trying to observe Earth analogs, it is often difficult to test the veracity of detection. We have developed a…
Transiting extrasolar planets are now discovered jointly by photometric surveys and by radial velocimetry. We want to determine whether the different data sets are compatible between themselves and with models of the evolution of extrasolar…