Dear all,

On Thursday 4 April, Carolina von Essen will give a seminar.

Title: Exploiting the power of transiting systems

Abstract: One of the legacies of space and ground-based missions dedicated to the search for exoplanets through the transit method is an abundance of opportunities to explore alien worlds in great detail. Primary transits, secondary eclipses and phase-changes in brightness allowed us to characterize many exceptional features including eccentricities, atmospheric compositions, reflectance properties, and planetary masses and sizes. Best of all, each and every step has moved us closer to discovering habitable planets and evidence of life beyond Earth. In this talk, I will present my personal contributions as an observer to the study of transiting exoplanets. I will describe my work on the characterization of planetary dynamical masses from transit timing variations, emphasizing on the gains of carrying out an in-detailed photo-dynamical analysis, and highlighting the relevance of this technique when compared to radial velocity measurements. Furthermore, I will show my contributions to the characterization of the atmospheric chemical compositions of two particular families of exoplanets through transmission spectroscopy, contrasting my results with current model expectations.