The radial velocity anomaly which affects spectroscopic observations of stars undergoing transit by a companion body is known as the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect. This effect can be used to measure the obliquities of the orbits of transiting planets. In this thesis I present a tomographic method for analysing the effect, which manifests itself in stellar spectral line-profiles. I implement this method on seven systems known to host transiting planets, and some systems with early-type host stars, for which the transit events have not yet been shown to be the result of planetary companions. Despite being well-suited to examining systems with early-type, rapidly-rotating host stars which have a more pronounced Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, I find the tomographic method is able to produce reasonable results for the system parameters of planets orbiting relatively slowly-rotating stars. I show that the method provides a significant increase in the accuracy of determinations of the stellar rotation rate and is able to better constrain values for the transit impact parameter. Though I do not confirm the existence of any new planets around early-type stars, I do use the tomographic method to reject one candidate as a stellar eclipsing binary system, and also reveal that one of the candidate host stars is a non-radial pulsator. I show that the method is able to examine systems involving stars with a range of spectral types and rotation rates.

The search for life on other worlds is an exciting scientific endeavor that could change the way we perceive our place in the universe. Thousands of extrasolar planets have been discovered using indirect detection techniques. One of the most promising methods for discovering new exoplanets and searching for life is direct imaging with a coronagraph. Exoplanet coronagraphy of Earth-like planets is a challenging task, but we have developed many of the tools necessary to make it feasible. The Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization (PIAA) Coronagraph is one of the highest-performing architectures for direct exoplanet imaging. With a complex phase-shifting focal plane mask, the PIAA Complex Mask Coronagraph (PIAACMC) can approach the theoretical performance limit for any direct detection technique. The architecture design is flexible enough to be applied to any arbitrary aperture shape, including segmented and obscured apertures. This is an important feature for compatibility with next-generation ground and space-based telescopes. PIAA and PIAACMC focal plane masks have been demonstrated in monochromatic light. An important next step for high-performance coronagraphy is the development of broadband phase-shifting focal plane masks. In this dissertation, we present an algorithm for designing the PIAA and PIAACMC focal plane masks to operate in broadband. We also demonstrate manufacturing of the focal plane masks, and show laboratory results. We use simulations to show the potential performance of the coronagraph system, and the use of wavefront control to correct for mask manufacturing errors. Given the laboratory results and simulations, we show new areas of exoplanet science that can potentially be explored using coronagraph technology. The main conclusion of this dissertation is that we now have the tools required to design and manufacture PIAA and PIAACMC achromatic focal plane masks. These tools can be applied to current and future telescope systems to enable new discoveries in exoplanet science.

Today the search for and study of exoplanets is one of the most interesting areas of modern astronomy. Over the last two decades, the number of detected exoplanets continues to increase. At present, over 3,300 exoplanets have been discovered. This thesis presents high precision studies based on the transit and microlensing methods which are used to detect hot and cool exoplanets, respectively. In this thesis, the effects of intrinsic stellar noise to the detectability of an exomoon orbiting a transiting exoplanet are investigated using transit timing variation and transit duration variation. The effects of intrinsic stellar variation of an M-dwarf reduce the detectability correlation coefficient by 0.0-0.2 with 0.1 median reduction. The transit timing variation and transmission spectroscopy observations and analyses of a hot-Neptune, GJ3470b, from telescopes at Thai National Observatory, and the 0.6-metre PROMPT-8 telescope in Chile are presented, in order to investigate the possibility of a third body in the system and to study its atmosphere. From the transit timing variation analyses, the presence of a hot Jupiter with a period of less than 10 days or a planet with an orbital period between 2.5 and 4.0 days in GJ3470 system are excluded. From transmission spectroscopy analyses, combined optical and near-infrared transmission spectroscopy favour a H/He dominated haze (mean molecular weight 1.08 \pm 0.20) with methane in the atmosphere of GJ3470b. With the microlensing technique, real-time online simulations of microlensing properties based on the Besancon Galactic model, called Manchester-Besancon Microlensing Simulator (MaBulS), are presented. We also apply it to the recent MOA-II survey results. This analysis provides the best comparison of Galactic structure between a simulated Galactic model and microlensing observations. The best-fitting model between Besancon and MOA-II data provides a brown dwarf mass function slope of -0.4. The Besancon model provides only 50 per cent of the measured optical depth and event rate per star at low Galactic latitude around the inner bulge. However, the revised MOA-II data are consistent the Besancon model without any missing inner bulge population.

Since the discovery of the first exoplanet orbiting a sun-like star in 1995, the fundamental questions as to the formation of our Solar System have met a paradigm shift. The presence of hot Jupiter exoplanets, Jupiter sized worlds rapidly orbiting their host stars, was unlike anything previously seen or predicted. The later discovery of these strange new worlds transiting their stars opened up a new realm of studies into their atmospheres using transit spectroscopy to separate the signals between the star and planetary atmosphere. This thesis investigates the transmission spectral properties of hot Jupiter exoplanets through observations and theoretical analysis from the search for H2O in the near-IR to the signatures of cloud condensates in the IR. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) observations of transiting hot Jupiters were used to investigate the atmospheric composition over water bands in the near infrared. We put forward a new analysis method to treat the varying systematics seen across transit datasets in a consistent and robust way, in which we marginalise over a grid of possible systematic models used to correct the lightcurves, with each model contributing to the extracted spectrum based on its statistical likelihood. We apply this new method to five previously studied hot Jupiter exoplanet transmission spectra and make direct comparisons between the planetary atmospheres. An apparent dichotomy emerges between two possible sub-classes of hot Jupiter atmospheres with clouds and hazes playing a key role. WFC3 appears to cover a critical wavelength range in exoplanet atmospheres where clouds and hazes potentially obscure the expected molecular signatures in systems where they are found to be obscured in the optical. Using analytical models following Mie theory, we explore the potential atmospheric transmission spectral signatures that would be caused by a variety of cloud condensates in hot Jupiter atmospheres. We find that the observed optical slope representing Rayleigh scattering at high altitudes can constrain the cloud condensate particle size and can be used as a diagnostic for potential condensate features in the IR where almost all condensate absorption features occur. We find that the major transmission spectral absorption features are generated by the vibrational modes of the major diatomic bond pair in each condensate species, which is often seen in the IR at 5-25 microns, and explore the potential for future JWST investigations using MIRI.

The Citizen Continental-America Telescopic Eclipse (CATE) Experiment established a standardized set of observation procedures and 72 volunteer observation teams with identical equipment along the path of the 2017 total solar eclipse. CATE successfully imaged the solar corona from 66 of the 72 observation sites resulting in a high dynamic range animation of 90 minutes of solar corona data collected by volunteer citizen science teams. A subgroup of CATE began work in the fall of 2017 to evaluate use of the standard CATE observation setup for exoplanet transit observations. Light curves and analysis of data using AstroImageJ of two well know transiting exoplanets, HD209458b (V = 7.65, depth = 1.5%) and HD189733b (V= 7.67, depth=2.4%) are presented along with modifications to CATE telescopes required for successful exoplanet follow up observations.

Direct imaging of exoplanets requires establishing and maintaining a high-contrast dark field (DF) within the science image to a high degree of precision (10(-10)). Current approaches aimed at establishing the DF, such as electric field conjugation (EFC), have been demonstrated in the lab and have proven capable of high-contrast DF generation. The same approaches have been considered for the maintenance of the DF as well. However, these methods rely on phase diversity measurements, which require field modulation; this interrupts the DF and consequently competes with the science acquisition. We introduce and demonstrate spatial linear dark field control (LDFC) as an alternative technique by which the high-contrast DF can be maintained without modulation. Once the DF has been established by conventional EFC, spatial LDFC locks the high-contrast state of the DF by operating a closed loop around the linear response of the bright field (BF) to wavefront variations that modify both the BF and the DF. We describe the fundamental operating principles of spatial LDFC and provide numerical simulations of its operation as a DF stabilization technique that is capable of wavefront correction within the DF without interrupting science acquisition. (c) The Authors.

AutoCAD, Zemax Optic Studio 15, and Interactive Data Language (IDL) with the Proper Library are used to computationally model and test a diffractive mask (DiM) suitable for use in the Gemini Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics System (GeMS) on the Gemini South Telescope. Systematic errors in telescope imagery are produced when the light travels through the adaptive optics system of the telescope. DiM is a transparent, flat optic with a pattern of miniscule dots lithographically applied to it. It is added ahead of the adaptive optics system in the telescope in order to produce diffraction spots that will encode systematic errors in the optics after it. Once these errors are encoded, they can be corrected for. DiM will allow for more accurate measurements in astrometry and thus improve exoplanet detection. The mechanics and physical attributes of the DiM are modeled in AutoCAD. Zemax models the ray propagation of point sources of light through the telescope. IDL and Proper simulate the wavefront and image results of the telescope. Aberrations are added to the Zemax and IDL models to test how the diffraction spots from the DiM change in the final images. Based on the Zemax and IDL results, the diffraction spots are able to encode the systematic aberrations.

abstract: Volcanic eruptions are serious geological hazards; the aftermath of the explosive eruptions produced at high-silica volcanic systems often results in long-term threats to climate, travel, farming, and human life. To construct models for eruption forecasting, the timescales of events leading up to eruption must be accurately quantified. In the field of igneous petrology, the timing of these events (e.g. periods of magma formation, duration of recharge events) and their influence on eruptive timescales are still poorly constrained. In this dissertation, I discuss how the new tools and methods I have developed are helping to improve our understanding of these magmatic events. I have developed a method to calculate more accurate timescales for these events from the diffusive relaxation of chemical zoning in individual mineral crystals (i.e., diffusion chronometry), and I use this technique to compare the times recorded by different minerals from the same Yellowstone lava flow, the Scaup Lake rhyolite. I have also derived a new geothermometer to calculate magma temperature from the compositions of the mineral clinopyroxene and the surrounding liquid. This empirically-derived geothermometer is calibrated for the high FeOtot (Mg# = 56) and low Al2O3 (0.53–0.73 wt%) clinopyroxene found in the Scaup Lake rhyolite and other high-silica igneous systems. A determination of accurate mineral temperatures is crucial to calculate magmatic heat budgets and to use methods such as diffusion chronometry. Together, these tools allow me to paint a more accurate picture of the conditions and tempo of events inside a magma body in the millennia to months leading up to eruption. Additionally, I conducted petrological experiments to determine the composition of hypothetical exoplanet partial mantle melts, which could become these planets’ new crust, and therefore new surface. Understanding the composition of an exoplanet’s crust is the first step to understanding chemical weathering, surface-atmosphere chemical interactions, the volcanic contribution to any atmosphere present, and biological processes, as life depends on these surfaces for nutrients. The data I have produced can be used to predict differences in crust compositions of exoplanets with similar bulk compositions to those explored herein, as well as to calibrate future exoplanet petrologic models. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Geological Sciences 2020

Multi-wavelength transit and secondary-eclipse light-curve observations are some of the most powerful techniques to probe the thermo-chemical properties of exoplanets. Although the large planet-to-star brightness contrast and few available spectral bands produce data with low signal-to-noise ratios, a Bayesian approach can robustly reveal what constraints we can set, without over-interpreting the data. Here I performed an end-to-end analysis of transiting exoplanet data. I analyzed space-telescope data for three planets to characterize their atmospheres and refine their orbits, investigated correlated noise estimators, and contributed to the development of the respective data-analysis pipelines. Chapters 2 and 3 describe the Photometry for Orbits, Eclipses and Transits (POET) pipeline to model Spitzer Space Telescope light curves. I analyzed secondary-eclipse observations of the Jupiter-sized planets WASP-8b and TrES-1, determining their day-side thermal emission in the infrared spectrum. The emission data of WASP-8b indicated no thermal inversion, and an anomalously high 3.6 micron brightness. Standard solar-abundance models, with or without a thermal inversion, can fit the thermal emission from TrES-1 well. Chapter 4 describes the most commonly used correlated-noise estimators for exoplanet light-curve modeling, and assesses their applicability and limitations to estimate parameters uncertainties. I show that the residual-permutation method is unsound for estimating parameter uncertainties. The time-averaging and the wavelet-based likelihood methods improve the uncertainty estimations, being within 20 - 50% of the expected value. Chapter 5 describes the open-source Bayesian Atmospheric Radiative Transfer (BART) code to characterize exoplanet atmospheres. BART combines a thermochemical-equilibrium code, a one-dimensional line-by-line radiative-transfer code, and the Multi-core Markov-chain Monte Carlo statistical module to constrains the atmospheric temperature and chemical-abundance profiles of exoplanets. I applied the BART code to the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescope transit observations of the Neptune-sized planet HAT-P-11b. BART finds an atmosphere enhanced in heavy elements, constraining the water abundance to ~100 times that of the solar abundance.

This thesis provides a multi-pronged approach towards paving the way for future space and ground based exoplanet characterisation e↵orts as well as providing new analysis of the atmosphere of the exoplanet HD 179949 b. This is done, firstly, by outlining engineering trade studies conducted for the attitude and orbit control system (AOCS) and sun shield for the Exoplanet Characterisation Observatory (EChO) spacecraft (a proposed European Space Agency exoplanet space mission). These trade studies were conducted in collaboration with EADS Astrium. A cold gas system with the possibility of a hybrid system which would include the use of reaction wheels is recommend for the design of the AOCS. For the sun shield, a V-groove cone shield is concluded to provide the best thermal coverage while also providing stay light protection as well as being more mechanically symmetric than other options. Simulations are then conducted to determine the number of transiting planets future surveys should expect to find around stars within 50 parsecs of the sun. This is done by taking the known stars within 50 parsecs and adding a simulated planet population based on current models and observations to each star. Assumptions are made regarding observability of a planetary transit and a Monte Carlo simulation run to gain statistics on the number and type of planetary systems that can be expected to be found. The results of the simulation show a mean expected number of 27 detectable transiting planets within 50 parsecs. Next, using the Position and Proper Motion Extended-L (PPMXL) catalogue, optical and near-infrared colour cuts were used together with a reduced proper motion cut to find bright M dwarfs for future exoplanet transit studies. PPMXL’s low proper motion uncertainties allow this work to probe down to smaller proper motions than previous similar studies. Unique objects found with this method were combined with that of previous work to produce 8479 K < 9 M dwarfs. Low-resolution spectroscopy was obtained of a sample of the objects found using this selection method to gain statistics on their spectral type and physical properties. Results show a spectral-type range of K7-M4V. This catalogue is the most complete collection of K < 9 M dwarfs currently available and is made available here. High resolution spectroscopy and model spectra of planetary atmospheres is then used along with a spectral deconvolution technique to attempt to detect the Doppler shifted signal of the non-transiting planet HD 179949 b. The signal was not detected but new upper limits were set ruling out the presence of TiO down to a log10 ✏0 = -4.09 with 99.9 per cent confidence. Simulations conducted by this work imply a loss of sensitivity occurring possibly due to varying telluric interference or instrumental systematics.