Searches for planets in close binary systems explore the degree to which stellar multiplicity inhibits or promotes planet formation. There is a degeneracy between planet formation models when only systems with single stars are studied--several mechanisms appear to be able to produce such a final result. This degeneracy is lifted by searching for planets in binary systems; the resulting detections (or evidence of non-existence) of planets in binaries isolates which models may contribute to how planets form in nature. In this chapter, we consider observational efforts to detect planetary companions to binary stars in two types of hierarchical planet-binary configurations: first ``S-type'' planets which orbit just one of the stars, with the binary period being much longer than the planet's; second, ``P-type'' or circumbinary planets, where the planet simultaneously orbits both stars, and the planetary orbital period is much longer than that of the binary. The S-type planet finding techniques are different for binaries that can or cannot be spatially resolved. For wider systems, techniques reviewed include dualstar interferometric differential astrometry and precision radial velocities. Alternatively, unresolved binaries can be studied using modified dualstar "PHASES-style" differential astrometry or a modification of the radial velocity technique for composite spectra. Should a fortunately aligned--but still long period--binary be found, eclipse timing can also reveal the presence of S-type planets. Methods for detecting P-type planets include the composite-spectra variant of the radial velocity technique and eclipse timing.
We examine the possibility of detecting signatures of surviving Uranus-Neptune-like planets inside planetary nebulae. Planets that are not too close to the stars, orbital separation larger than about 5 AU, are likely to survive the entire evolution of the star. As the star turns into a planetary nebula, it has a fast wind and a strong ionizing radiation. The interaction of the radiation and wind with a planet may lead to the formation of a compact condensation or tail inside the planetary nebula, which emits strongly in Halpha, but not in [OIII]. The position of the condensation (or tail) will…
We investigate a new approach to the detection of companions to extrasolar planets beyond the transit method. We discuss the possibility of the existence of binary planets. We develop a method based on the imaging of a planet-companion as an unresolved system (but resolved from its parent star). It makes use of planet-companion mutual phenomena, namely mutual transits and mutual shadows. We show that companions can be detected and their radius measured down to lunar sizes.
Extra-solar planets can be efficiently detected in gravitational microlensing events of high magnification. High accuracy photometry is required over a short, well-defined time interval only, of order 10-30 hours. Most planets orbiting the lens star are evidenced by perturbations of the microlensing light curve in this time.
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 detecting satellites around exoplanets. In this paper, we test the feasibility of detecting satellites of exoplanets via microlensing. For this purpose, we investigate the effect of satellites in the magnification pattern near the region of the planet-induced perturbations by performing realistic simulations of Galactic bulge microlensing events. From this inves…
We use a multiannulus accretion code to investigate debris disks in the terrestrial zone, at 0.7-1.3 AU around a 1 solar mass star. Terrestrial planet formation produces a bright dusty ring of debris with a lifetime of at least 1 Myr. The early phases of terrestrial planet formation are observable with current facilities; the late stages require more advanced instruments with adaptive optics.
Long time coverage and high radial velocity precision have allowed for the discovery of additional objects in known planetary systems. Many of the extrasolar planets detected have highly eccentric orbits, which raises the question of how likely those systems are to host additional planets. We investigate six systems which contain a very eccentric (e>0.6) planet: HD 3651, HD 37605, HD 45350, HD 80606, HD 89744, and 16 Cyg B. We present updated radial-velocity observations and orbital solutions, search for additional planets, and perform test particle simulations to find regions of dynamical sta…
The challenge for optical detection of terrestial planet is the 25 magnitude brightness contrast between the planet and its host star. This paper introduces a new pupil design that produces a very dark null along its symmetry axis. By changing the shape of the pupil, we can control the depth and location of this null. This null can be further enhanced by combining this pupil with a rooftop nuller or cateye nuller and an aperture stop. The performance of the optical system will be limited by imperfections in the mirror surface. If the star is imaged with and without the nuller, then we can char…
The difference in formation process between binary stars and planetary systems is reflected in their composition as well as their orbital architecture, particularly orbital eccentricity as a function of orbital period. It is suggested here that this difference can be used as an observational criterion to distinguish between brown dwarfs and planets. Application of the orbital criterion suggests that with three possible exceptions, all of the recently-discovered substellar companions discovered to date may be brown dwarfs and not planets. These criterion may be used as a guide for interpretatio…
With the advent of optical interferometers that will be coming online in the next decade, radial velocity searches for extra-solar planets will be complemented by high angular resolution astrometric measurements. In this paper, we explore the sensitivity of the astrometric technique, and develop an analytical understanding of the sensitivity in the regime where the orbital period is longer than the time-baseline of the survey. As in an earlier paper that dealt with the radial velocity technique, our analysis of the astrometric technique utilizes both the orbital amplitude and phase.
One of the promising methods to search for life on extra-solar planets (exoplanets) is to detect life's signatures in their atmospheres. Spectra of exoplanet atmospheres at the modest resolution needed to search for oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, and methane will demand large collecting areas and large diameters to capture and isolate the light from planets in the habitable zones around the stars. For telescopes using coronagraphs to isolate the light from the planet, each doubling of telescope diameter will increase the available sample of stars by an order of magnitude, indicating a high sci…
More than 100 microlensing events have been detected during the last ~4 years, most of them towards the Galactic Bulge. Since the line of sight towards the Bulge passes through the disk and the Bulge itself, the known stars towards the Bulge play a dominant role as gravitational lenses. If these stars have planets around them, then the signature of the planets can be seen as sharp, extra peaks on the microlensing light curves. Frequent, continuous monitoring of the on-going microlensing events thus provides a powerful new method to search for planets around lensing stars. Here I first review t…
We summarize the results of two experiments to address important issues related to the correlation between planet frequencies and properties and the metallicity of the hosts. Our results can usefully inform formation, structural, and evolutionary models of gas giant planets.
We investigate the possibility to find evidence for planets in circumstellar disks by infrared and submillimeter interferometry. We present simulations of a circumstellar disk around a solar-type star with an embedded planet of 1 Jupiter mass. The three-dimensional (3D) density structure of the disk results from hydrodynamical simulations. On the basis of 3D radiative transfer simulations, images of this system were calculated. The intensity maps provide the basis for the simulation of the interferometers VLTI (equipped with the mid-infrared instrument MIDI) and ALMA. While MIDI/VLTI will not …
NASA's Kepler Mission promises to detect transiting Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of solar-like stars. In addition, it will be poised to detect the reflected light component from close-in extrasolar giant planets (CEGPs) similar to 51 Peg b. Here we use the DIARAD/SOHO time series along with models for the reflected light signatures of CEGPs to evaluate Kepler's ability to detect such planets. We examine the detectability as a function of stellar brightness, stellar rotation period, planetary orbital inclination angle, and planetary orbital period, and then estimate the total numb…
We propose that astronomers will be eventually be able to discriminate between extrasolar Earth-like planets with surface oceans and those without using the shape of phase light curves in the visible and near-IR spectrum. We model the visible light curves of planets having Earth-like surfaces, seasons, and optically-thin atmospheres with idealized diffuse-scattering clouds. We show that planets partially covered by water will appear measurably brighter near crescent phase (relative to Lambertian planets) because of the efficient specular reflection (i.e., glint) of starlight incident on their …
The increase in luminosity with time of a main sequence star eventually can lead to substantial evaporation of the oceans on an orbiting terrestrial planet. Subsequently, the gas phase water in the planet's upper atmosphere can be photodissociated by stellar ultraviolet and the resulting atomic hydrogen then may be lost in a wind. This gaseous envelope may pass in front of the host star and produce tansient, detectable ultraviolet absorption in the Lyman lines in systems older than 1 Gyr.
The Angstrom Project is using a global network of 2m-class telescopes to conduct a high cadence pixel microlensing survey of the bulge of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), with the primary aim of constraining its underlying bulge mass distribution and stellar mass function. Here we investigate the feasibility of using such a survey to detect planets in M31. We estimate the efficiency of detecting signals for events induced by planetary systems as a function of planet/star mass ratio and separation, source type and background M31 surface brightness. We find that for planets of a Jupiter-mass or above…
Various methods have been proposed to search for extrasolar planets. Compared to the other methods, microlensing has unique applicabilities to the detections of Earth-mass and free-floating planets. However, the microlensing method is seriously flawed by the fact that the masses of the detected planets cannot be uniquely determined. Recently, Gould, Gaudi, & Han introduced an observational setup that enables one to resolve the mass degeneracy of the Earth-mass planets. The setup requires a modest adjustment to the orbit of an already proposed Microlensing planet-finder satellite combined with …
Earth-like extra-solar planets may be detected with 1-2m class telescopes using the gravitational microlensing technique. The essential requirement is the ability to be able to carry out continuous observations of the galactic bulge. A telescope situated at Dome A or Dome C in Antarctica would be eminently suitable. Two possible observing strategies are described here. One employs a 1m visible (V and I passbands) telescope, the other a 2m wide-field near infrared telescope. Either telescope could allow a rough measurement of the abundance of Earth-like planets in the Milky Way to be made in a …
In the coming decades, research in extrasolar planets aims to advance two goals: 1) detecting and characterizing low-mass planets increasingly similar to the Earth, and 2) improving our understanding of planet formation. We present a new planet detection method that is capable of making large advances towards both of these objectives and describe a modest network of telescopes that is able to make the requisite observations. In a system where a known planet transits its host star, a second planet in that system will cause the time between transits to vary. These transit timing variations can b…
We show that Earth mass planets orbiting stars in the Galactic disk and bulge can be detected by monitoring microlensed stars in the Galactic bulge. The star and its planet act as a binary lens which generates a lightcurve which can differ substantially from the lightcurve due only to the star itself. We show that the planetary signal remains detectable for planetary masses as small as an Earth mass when realistic source star sizes are included in the lightcurve calculation. These planets are detectable if they reside in the ``lensing zone" which is centered between 1 and 4 AU from the lensing…
The only way to detect planets around stars at distances of several kpc is by (photometric or astrometric) microlensing observations. In this paper, we show that the capability of photometric microlensing extends to the detection of signals caused by planets around stars in nearby galaxies (e.g. M31) and that there is no other method that can achieve this. Due to the large crowding, microlensing experiments towards M31 can only observe the high-magnification part of a lensing light curve. Therefore, the dominating channel for microlensing signals by planets is in distortions near the peak of h…
I present an initial investigation into a new planet detection technique that uses the transit timing of a known, transiting planet. The transits of a solitary planet orbiting a star occur at equally spaced intervals in time. If a second planet is present, dynamical interactions within the system will cause the time interval between transits to vary. These transit time variations can be used to infer the orbital elements of the unseen, perturbing planet. I show analytic expressions for the amplitude of the transit time variations in several limiting cases. Under certain conditions the transit …
We classify various types of planetary lensing signals and the channels of detecting them. We estimate the relative frequencies of planet detections through the individual channels with special emphasis on the new channels to be additionally provided by future lensing experiments that will survey wide fields continuously at high cadence by using very large-format imaging cameras. From this investigation, we find that the fraction of wide-separation planets that would be discovered through the new channels of detecting planetary signals as independent and repeating events would be substantial. …
The perturbation caused by planet-moon binarity on the time-of-arrival signal of a pulsar with an orbiting planet is derived for the case in which the orbits of the moon and the planet-moon barycenter are both circular and coplanar. The signal consists of two sinusoids with frequency (2n_p - 3n_b) and (2n_p - n_b ), where n_p and n_b are the mean motions of the planet and moon around their barycenter, and the planet-moon system around the host, respectively. The amplitude of the signal is equal to the fraction sin I[9(M_p M_m)/16(M_p + M_m)^2] [r/R]^5 of the system crossing time R/c, where M_p…
Ribas and collaborators have recently proposed that an additional, ~5 M_earth planet orbits the transiting planet host star GJ436. Long-term dynamical interactions between the two planets leading to eccentricity excitation might provide an explanation for the transiting planet's unexpectedly large orbital eccentricity. In this paper we examine whether the existence of such a second planet is supported by the available observational data when the short-term interactions that would result from its presence are accounted for. We find that the model for the system suggested by Ribas and collaborat…
Microlensing has proven to be a valuable tool to search for extrasolar planets of Jovian- to Super-Earth-mass planets at orbits of a few AU. Since planetary signals are of very short duration, an intense and continuous monitoring is required. This is achieved by ground-based networks of telescopes (PLANET/RoboNET, microFUN) following up targets, which are identified as microlensing events by single dedicated telescopes (OGLE, MOA). Microlensing has led to four already published detections of extrasolar planets, one of them being OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, a planet of only ~5.5 M_earth orbiting its M…
The astrometric and radial velocity techniques of extra-solar planet detection attempt to detect the periodic reflex motion of the parent star by extracting this periodic signal from a time-sampled set of observations. The extraction is generally accomplished using periodogram analysis or the functionally equivalent technique of Least Squares fitting of sinusoids. In this paper, we use a Frequentist approach to examine the sensitivity of Least Squares technique when applied to a combination of radial velocity and astrometric observations. We derive a semi-analytical expression for the sensitiv…
Atomic hydrogen escaping from the extrasolar giant planet HD209458b provides the largest observational signature ever detected for an extrasolar planet atmosphere. In fact, the upper atmosphere of this planet is evaporating. Observational evidences and interpretations coming from various models are reviewed. Implications for exoplanetology are discussed.
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 systems using the transit method. Aims. In this paper, we present a new method for transit detection and determine the smallest detected planetary radius, assuming a parent star like the Sun. Methods. We simulated light curves with Poisson noise and stellar variability, for which data from the VIRGO/PMO6 instrument on board SoHO were used. Transits were simu…
We identify a subsample of the recently detected extrasolar planets that is minimally affected by the selection effects of the Doppler detection method. With a simple analysis we quantify trends in the surface density of this subsample in the period - Msin(i) plane. A modest extrapolation of these trends puts Jupiter in the most densely occupied region of this parameter space, thus indicating that Jupiter is a typical massive planet rather than an outlier. Our analysis suggests that Jupiter is more typical than indicated by previous analyses. For example, instead of M_Jup mass exoplanets being…
This paper summarizes a project designed to study abundances in a sample of planetary nebulae representing a broad range in progenitor mass and metallicity. We collect abundances of C, N, and O determined for the entire sample and compare them with theoretical predictions of planetary nebula abundances from a grid of intermediate-mass star models. We find very good agreement between observations and theory, lending strong support to our current understanding of nucleosynthesis in stars with progenitor masses below 8 solar masses. This agreement between observation and theory also supports the …
Gravitational microlensing events of high magnification have been shown to be promising targets for detecting extrasolar planets. However, only a few events of high magnification have been found using conventional survey techniques. Here we demonstrate that high magnification events can be readily found in microlensing surveys using a strategy that combines high frequency sampling of target fields with online difference imaging analysis. We present 10 microlensing events with peak magnifications greater than 40 that were detected in real-time towards the Galactic Bulge during 2001 by MOA. We s…
The transits of a planet on a Keplerian orbit occur at time intervals exactly equal to the period of the orbit. If a second planet is introduced the orbit is not Keplerian and the transits are no longer exactly periodic. We compute the magnitude of these variations in the timing of the transits, dt. We investigate analytically several limiting cases: (i) interior perturbing planets with much smaller periods; (ii) exterior perturbing planets on eccentric orbits with much larger periods; (iii) both planets on circular orbits with arbitrary period ratio but not in resonance; and (iv) planets on i…
Observations of extrasolar planets using Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS), if coupled with an extreme Adaptive Optics system and analyzed with a Simultaneous Differential Imaging technique (SDI), are a powerful tool to detect and characterize extrasolar planets directly; they enhance the signal of the planet and, at the same time, reduces the impact of stellar light and consequently important noise sources like speckles. In order to verify the efficiency of such a technique, we developed a simulation code able to test the capabilities of this IFS-SDI technique for different kinds of planets a…
This paper investigates the effects of observing windows on detecting transiting planets by calculating the fraction of planets with a given period that have zero, one (single), two (double), or $\ge$3 (multiple) transits occurring while observations are being taken. We also investigate the effects of collaboration by performing the same calculations with combined observing times from two wide-field transit survey groups. For a representative field of the 2004 observing season, both XO and SuperWASP experienced an increase in single and double transit events by up to 20-40% for planets with pe…
Theoretical studies predict that Trojans are likely a frequent byproduct of planet formation and evolution. We examine the sensitivity of transit timing observations for detecting Trojan companions to transiting extrasolar planets. We demonstrate that this method offers the potential to detect terrestrial-mass Trojans using existing ground-based observatories. We compare the transit timing variation (TTV) method with other techniques for detecting extrasolar Trojans and outline the future prospects for this method.
Window functions describe, as a function of orbital period, the probability that an existing planetary transit is detectable in one's data for a given observing strategy. We show the dependence of this probability upon several strategy and astrophysical parameters, such as length of observing run, observing cadence, length of night, and transit duration. The ability to detect a transit is directly related to the intrinsic noise of the observations. In our simulations of the window function, we explicitly address non-correlated (gaussian or white) noise and correlated (red) noise and discuss ho…
We present a new technique for detecting scattered starlight from transiting, close-orbiting extrasolar giant planets (CEGPs) that has the virtues of simplicity, robustness, linearity, and model-independence. Given a series of stellar spectra obtained over various phases of the planetary orbit, the goal is to measure the strength of the component scattered by the planet relative to the component coming directly from the star. We use two complementary strategies, both of which rely on the predictable Doppler shifts of both components and on combining the results from many spectral lines and man…
A lightcurve of the eclipsing binary CM Draconis has been analyzed for the presence of transits of planets of size >= 2.5 Earth-radii (Re), with periods of 60 days or less, and in co-planar orbits around the binary system. About 400 million model lightcurves, representing transits from planets with periods ranging from 7 to 60 days, have been matched/correlated against these data. This process we call the "transit detection algorithm" or TDA. The resulting `transit-statistics' for each planet candidate allow the quantification of detection probabilities, and of false alarm rates. Our current l…
I propose a method to detect planets around compact binaries that are strong sources of gravitational radiation. This approach is to measure gravitational-wave phase modulations induced by the planets, and its prospect is studied with a Fisher matrix analysis. I find that, using the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), planets can be searched for around ~3000 Galactic double white dwarfs with detection limit ~4 M_J (M_J~ 2x10^{30}g: the Jupiter mass). With its follow-on missions, planets with mass ~1 M_J might be detected around double neutron stars even at cosmological distances z~1. In…
Theoretical studies predict that Trojans are likely a frequent byproduct of planet formation and evolution. We present a novel method of detecting Trojan companions to transiting extrasolar planets which involves comparing the time of central eclipse with the time of the stellar reflex velocity null. We demonstrate that this method offers the potential to detect terrestrial-mass Trojans using existing ground-based observatories. This method rules out Trojan companions to HD 209458b and HD 149026b more massive than ~13 Earth masses and \~25 Earth masses at a 99.9% confidence level. Such a Troja…
We address the problem of assessing the statistical significance of candidate periodicities found using the so-called `multi-harmonic' periodogram, which is being used for detection of non-sinusoidal signals, and is based on the least-squares fitting of truncated Fourier series. The recent investigation (Baluev 2008) made for the Lomb-Scargle periodogram is extended to the more general multi-harmonic periodogram. As a result, closed and efficient analytic approximations to the false alarm probability, associated with multi-harmonic periodogram peaks, are obtained. The resulting analytic approx…
The technique of radial velocity (RV) has produced spectacular discoveries of short-period Jovian mass objects around a fraction (5 to 10%) of nearby G stars. Although we expect Jovian planets to be located in long-period orbits of decades or longer (if our solar system is any guide), detecting such planets with RV technique is difficult due to smaller velocity amplitudes and the limited temporal baseline (5-10 yr) of current searches relative to the expected orbital periods. In this paper, we develop an analytical understanding of the sensitivity of RV technique in the regime where the the or…
Although it is commonly agreed that the presence of a close stellar companion is likely to affect planet formation and evolution, the precise effects and their actual impact on planet occurrence and properties are still debated. In particular, observational constraints are sparse, a consequence of the discrimination against close binaries in Doppler planet searches. To bring observational constraints on the occurrence and properties of planets in binaries and multiple stars, we have been conducting two dedicated observing programs using both adaptive optics imaging and radial-velocity monitori…
There are two different strategies of followup observations for the detection of planets by using microlensing. One is detecting the light curve anomalies affected by the planetary caustic from continuous monitoring of all events detected by microlensing survey programs (type I strategy) and the other is detecting anomalies near the peak amplification affected by the central caustic from intensive monitoring of high amplification events (type II strategy). It was shown by Griest & Safizadeh that the type II strategy yields high planet detection efficiency per event. However, it is not known th…
The incidence of planetary systems orbiting red dwarf stars with masses less than 0.4 solar masses provides a crucial observational test for the Self-Similar Cosmological paradigm. The discrete self-similarity of the paradigm mandates the prediction of anomalously few planetary systems associated with these lowest mass red dwarf stars, in contrast to conventional astrophysical assumptions. Ongoing observational programs are rapidly collecting the data necessary for testing this prediction and preliminary results are highly encouraging. A definitive verdict on the prediction should be available…
If planetary systems are ubiquitous then a fraction of stars should possess a transiting planet when being microlensed. This paper presents a study of the influence of such planets on microlensing light curves. For the giant planets recently identified, the deviations in the light curve can be substantial, although the specifics of the perturbations are dependent upon the radius of the planet relative to that of the star, the location of the planet over the stellar surface and the orientation of the sweeping caustic. Given that the instantaneous probability of transiting hot-Jupiter like plane…
We have carried out a survey of X-ray emission from stars with giant planets, combining both archival and targeted surveys. Over 230 stars have been currently identified as possessing planets, and roughly a third of these have been detected in X-rays. We carry out detailed statistical analysis on a volume limited sample of main sequence star systems with detected planets, comparing subsamples of stars that have close-in planets with stars that have more distant planets. This analysis reveals strong evidence that stars with close-in giant planets are on average more X-ray active by a factor ~4 …
Transit searches provide a large number of planet candidates. Before attempting follow-up observations, the best effort should be spent in classifying the light-curves, rejecting false alarms and selecting the most likely ones for real planets. A number of analysis tools has been developed with these objectives. Here, we apply such tools to 237 simulated multi-color light-curves from CoRoT Blind Test 2, which contain simulated planet transits and several configurations of impostors. Their comparison gives indications of the various tools' classification and false-alarm rejection capabilities. …
Radial velocity searches for extrasolar planets have recently detected several very low mass (7-20M_Earth) planets in close orbits with periods <10 days. We consider the prospects for detecting the analogs of these planets in Galactic open clusters via transits. We outline the requirements for constructing a transit survey that would allow one to probe such ``Hot Earths'' and ``Hot Neptunes.'' Specifically, we present a simple criterion for detection that defines the minimum aperture required to detect planets of a given radius in a cluster at a given distance. Adopting photometric precisions …