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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Observations And Light Curve Analysis Of Transiting Extra-Solar Planets, Clark M. Holcomb Dec 2016

Observations And Light Curve Analysis Of Transiting Extra-Solar Planets, Clark M. Holcomb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to perform the procedures to study transiting exoplanets in their entirety, from the data collection process to determining physical characteristics and orbital properties. The research was conducted with two telescopes of different sizes (16” and 12”) at multiple sites in order to refine the detection process. Both Maxim DL and Mira Pro x64 software were used to process the resulting images. The PHOEBE program was used to model the data to determine the properties of the exoplanets, which were then compared to the results obtained by other astronomers. The data collection process as well …


Fundamental Parameters Of The Lowest Mass Stars To The Highest Mass Planets, Joseph C. Filippazzo Sep 2016

Fundamental Parameters Of The Lowest Mass Stars To The Highest Mass Planets, Joseph C. Filippazzo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The physical and atmospheric properties of ultracool dwarfs are deeply entangled due to the degenerate effects of mass, age, metallicity, clouds and dust, activity, rotation, and possibly formation mechanism on their observed properties. Accurate fundamental parameters for a wide range of substellar objects are crucial to testing stellar and planetary formation theories. To determine these quantities, we construct flux-calibrated spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for 234 M, L, T, and Y dwarfs and calculate bolometric luminosity (Lbol), effective temperature (Teff), mass, surface gravity, radius, spectral indexes, synthetic photometry, and bolometric corrections (BCs) for each object. We use …


Atmospheric, Orbital, And Eclipse-Depth Analysis Of The Hot Jupiter Hat-P-30-Wasp-51ab, Andrew Sd Foster Jan 2016

Atmospheric, Orbital, And Eclipse-Depth Analysis Of The Hot Jupiter Hat-P-30-Wasp-51ab, Andrew Sd Foster

Honors Undergraduate Theses

HAT-P-30-WASP-51b is a hot-Jupiter exoplanet that orbits an F star every 2.8106 days at a distance of 0.0419 AU. Using the Spitzer Space Telescope in 2012 (Spitzer Program Number 70084) we observed two secondary eclipses at 3.6 and 4.5 μm. We present eclipse-depth measurements of 0.177 ± 0.018 % and 0.247 ± 0.024 % and estimate the infrared brightness temperatures to be 1990 ± 110 K and 2080 ± 130 K for these two channels, respectively, from an analysis using our Photometry for Orbits, Eclipses, and Transits (POET) pipeline. These may be grazing eclipses. We also refine its orbit using …


Bayesian Model Testing Of Models For Ellipsoidal Variation On Stars Due To Hot Jupiters, Anthony Gai Jan 2016

Bayesian Model Testing Of Models For Ellipsoidal Variation On Stars Due To Hot Jupiters, Anthony Gai

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

A massive planet closely orbiting its host star creates tidal forces that distort the typically spherical stellar surface. These distortions, known as ellipsoidal variations, result in variations in the photometric flux emitted by the star, which can be detected by the Kepler Space Telescope. Currently, there exist several models describing such variations and their effect on the photometric fux [1] [2] [3] [4]. By using Bayesian model testing in conjunction with the Bayesian-based exoplanet characterization software package EXONEST [4] [5] [6], the most probable representation for ellipsoidal variations was determined for synthetic data and two systems with confirmed hot Jupiter …