Methods of Detecting Exoplanets: 1st Advanced School on Exoplanetary Science [Paperback]

In this book, renowned scientists describe the various techniques used to detect and characterize extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, with a view to unveiling the tricks of the trade of planet detection to a wider community. The radial velocity method, transit method, microlensing method, and direct imaging method are all clearly explained, drawing attention to their advantages and limitations and highlighting the complementary roles that they can play in improving the characterization of exoplanets physical and orbital properties. By probing the planetary frequency at different distances and in different conditions, these techniques are helping astrophysicists to reconstruct the scenarios of planetary formation and to give robust scientific answers to questions regarding the frequency of potentially habitable worlds. Twenty years have passed since the discovery of a Jupiter-mass companion to a main sequence star other than the Sun, heralding the birth of extrasolar planetary research; this book fully conveys the exciting progress that has been achieved during the intervening period.

1st Advanced School on Exoplanetary Science: Methods of detecting Exoplantes.- The Radial Velocity Method.- The Transit method.- The Microlensing method.- Direct imaging of Exoplanets.

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Valerio Bozza is a researcher in the E.R. Caianiello Department of Physics at the University of Salerno, Italy. Dr. Bozza gained his doctorate from Salerno University in 2002 for a thesis on Pre-Big Bang cosmology: initial conditions and brane-worlds and subsequently undertook research at CERNs TH Unit. His fields of interest include cosmology (string cosmology, bouncing cosmologies, cosmological perturbations, brane worlds, and transplanckian effects), gravitational lensing by black holes, and microlensing (the search for extrasolar planets, binary microlensing modeling, and microlenses surrounded by gas clouds). He is the author of more than 90 scientific publl³.