Related papers: Simulations for Multi-Object Spectrograph Planet S…
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…
Doppler observations of exoplanet systems have been a very expensive technique, mainly due to the high costs of high-resolution stable spectrographs. Recent advances in instrumentation enable affordable Doppler planet detections with…
With manual searching processes, the rate at which scientists and astronomers discover exoplanets is slow because of inefficiencies that require an extensive time of laborious inspections. In fact, as of now there have been about only 5,000…
Although many methods of detecting extra-solar planets have been proposed and successful implementation of some of these methods enabled a rapidly increasing number of exoplanet detections, little has been discussed about the method of…
In this paper we develop an analytical expression relating the sensitivity to a periodic signal to the duration and accuracy of a given set of data. The effects of windowing are explored, and also the sensitivity to periods longer than the…
Accounting for stellar activity is a crucial component of the search for ever-smaller planets orbiting stars of all spectral types. We use Doppler imaging methods to demonstrate that starspot induced radial velocity variability can be…
A new generation of telescopes with mirror diameters of 20 m or more, called extremely large telescopes (ELTs) has the potential to provide unprecedented imaging and spectroscopy of exo-planetary systems, if the difficulties in achieving…
Several celestial bodies in co-orbital configurations exist in the solar system. However, co-orbital exoplanets have not yet been discovered. This lack may result from a degeneracy between the signal induced by co-orbital planets and other…
The Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) is expected to make precise astrometric measurements that can be used to detect low mass planets around nearby stars. Since most nearby stars are members of multiple star systems, many stars will have…
The radial velocity method is one of the most successful techniques for the discovery and characterization of exoplanets. Modern spectrographs promise measurement precision of ~0.2-0.5 m/s for an ideal target star. However, the intrinsic…
The sensitivity of radial velocity (RV) surveys for exoplanet detection are extending to increasingly long orbital periods, where companions with periods of several years are now being regularly discovered. Companions with orbital periods…
A unique analytical solution of planet and star parameters can be derived from an extrasolar planet transit light curve under a number of assumptions. This analytical solution can be used to choose the best planet transit candidates for…
The growing rate of increase in the number of the discovered extra-solar planets which has consequently raised the enthusiasm to explore the universe in hope of finding earth-like planets has resulted in the wide use of Gravitational…
We develop a method for predicting the yield of transiting planets from a photometric survey given the parameters of the survey (nights observed, bandpass, exposure time, telescope aperture, locations of the target fields, observational…
Extreme precision radial velocity (EPRV) surveys usually require extensive observational baselines to confirm planetary candidates, making them resource-intensive. Traditionally, periodograms are used to identify promising candidate signals…
The detection of exoplanets in coronographic images is severely limited by residual starlight speckles. Dedicated post-processing can drastically reduce this "stellar leakage" and thereby increase the faintness of detectable exoplanets.…
(Abridged) To this purpose, in the course of the thesis work we prepared a suitable software in order to use the same spectra acquired for radial velocity determinations (i.e., with the spectrum of the Iodine cell imprinted on) to measure…
The physical characterization of exoplanets will require to take spectra at several orbital positions. For that purpose, a direct imaging capability is necessary. Direct imaging requires an efficient stellar suppression mechanism,…
The Exoplanet Tracker is a prototype of a new type of fibre-fed instrument for performing high precision relative Doppler measurements to detect extra-solar planets. A combination of Michelson interferometer and medium resolution…
A new method for the line-of-sight velocity estimation of a high-speed near-Earth object (asteroid, meteorite) is suggested. The method is based on use of fractional, one-half order derivative of a Doppler signal. The algorithm suggested is…