Synergies of Ground and Space Based Transit Surveys

Abstract

This thesis explores techniques to discover and

characterize transiting extrasolar planets, i.e. planets orbiting

other stars that periodically cross in front of their host star as

viewed from the Earth. I concentrate on the synergy

between space and ground based wide field transit surveys. The

Kepler Space Mission has discovered ~4000 planetary candidates

in the past four years. I first present an independent transit search

of the preliminary public Kepler data,

using a custom modified version of the HATNet project's planet

detection pipeline, resulting in the discovery of an additional

150 new planetary candidates. The Kepler "K2" mission introduced

more challenges in achieving ultra high precision photometry. I

describe an independent K2 software pipeline, which provides

high quality K2 light curve

for public use. I then report the discovery of HAT-P-56b, a

hot-Jupiter discovered by the HATNet survey, with photometric

confirmation from K2, and ground-based radial velocity confirmation.

I also use simultaneous space based observations to train and

calibrate the candidate selection process from ground based transit

surveys, improving the yield of planet candidates. Finally, this thesis presents

detailed modeling of transit light curves to characterize the

properties of giant planets, including their oblateness,

and their orbital alignment with the stellar equator.