Dr. Luigi ManciniResearch outline
Given a suitable geometrical alignment, light from a host star should be attenuated by the transit of a planet across its disk, with the effect repeating at the orbital period. The phenomenon is precisely the same as that seen in the recent transits of Venus as observed from Earth in June 2004 and June 2012. The transit method is thus based on the observation of a star's small drop in brightness lasting for several hours.
The light curve (graph of light intensity of a star as a function of time, Fig. 1) of a planetary transit allows to measure the radii of the star and planet, whereas the velocity variation of the parent stars indicate the planets’ masses, with some dependence on stellar theory. With high-quality observations and careful analysis, it is therefore possible to measure the masses and radii of transiting planets to accuracies of 1–3%. In 2009 I started a project with the purpose to observe Transiting Extrasolar Planets (TEPs) with an array of medium-class telescopes from both Earth’s hemispheres, in order to obtain accurate measurements of the physical properties of the corresponding planetary systems. I was a pioneer of the telescope-defocussing technique, being the first in northern hemisphere to use this method to follow-up TEPs and the first to use a two-site strategy too.
I also pioneered the use of multi-band imaging instruments to perform transmission photometry, to obtain information on the chemical composition of the atmosphere of TEPs (Fig. 2).Since 2011, I have been involved in the HATSouth project, an international collaboration between the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, the Princeton University, the Australian National University and the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile.
The project consists in a global network of robotic wide field telescopes, located at three sites (Chile, Australia and Namibia), with the purpose of detecting and characterising new transiting extrasolar planets. Being currently member of the executive board and manager of the Namibian node (Fig. 3), I take part in many aspects of the project, such as overseeing operations, data flow and analysis, related software development, follow-up observations, interpretation of the data, and communication of the scientific results.
Research groups:
 |
 |
Publications
Physical properties, starspot activity, orbital obliquity and transmission spectrum of the Qatar-2 planetary system from multi-colour photometry
L. Mancini, J. Southworth, S. Ciceri, M. Dominik, Th. Henning, U. G. Jorgensen, A. F. Lanza, M. Rabus, C. Snodgrass,
C. Vilela, K. A. Alsubai, V. Bozza, S. Calchi Novati, G. D' Ago, P. Galianni, S.-H. Gu, K. Harpsoe, T. Hinse, M.
Hundertmark, R. J. F. Jaimes, D. Juncher, N. Kains, H. Korhonen, A. Popovas, S. Rahvar, J. Skottfelt, R. Street, J.
Surdej, Y. Tsapras, J. Wambsganss, X.-B. Wang, O. Wertz
Submitted to Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2014)
preprint arXiv:1406.6714
Physical properties and transmission spectrum of the WASP-80 planetary system from multi-colour photometry
L. Mancini, J. Southworth, S. Ciceri, J. Tregloan-Reed, I. Crossfield, N. Nikolov, I. Bruni, R. Zambelli, Th. Henning
Accepted - Astronomy & Astrophysics 562, A126 (9 pp.), 2014
preprint arXiv:1312.4982
Physical properties, transmission and emission spectra of the WASP-19 planetary system from multi-colour photometry
L. Mancini, S. Ciceri, G. Chen, J. Tregloan-Reed, J. J. Fortney, J. Southworth, T.G. Tan, M. Burgdorf, S. Calchi
Novati, M. Dominik, X.-S. Fang, F. Finet, T. Gerner, S. Hardis, T. C. Hinse, U. G. Jorgensen, C. Liebig, N. Nikolov, D.
Ricci, S. Schaefer, F. Schaonebeck, J. Skottfelt, O. Wertz, K. A. Alsubai, V. Bozza, P. Browne, P. Dodds, S.-H. Gu, K.
Harpsoe, Th. Henning, M. Hundertmark, J. Jessen-Hansen, N. Kains, E. Kerins, H. Kjeldsen, M. N. Lund, M. Lundkvist,
N. Madhusudhan, M. Mathiasen, M. T. Penny, S. Proft, S. Rahvar, K. Sahu, G. Scarpetta, C. Snodgrass, J. Surdej
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 436, 2-18, 2013
HATS-2b: A transiting extrasolar planet orbiting a K-type star showing starspot activity
M. Mohler-Fischer, L. Mancini, J. D. Hartman, G. A. Bakos, K. Penev, D. Bayliss, A. Jordan, Z. Csubry, G. Zhou, M.
Rabus, N. Nikolov, R. Brahm, N. Espinoza, L. A. Buchhave, B. Beky, V. Suc, B. Csak, T. Henning, D. J. Wright, C. G.
Tinney, B. C. Addison, B. Schmidt, R. W. Noyes, I. Papp, J. Lazar, P. Sari, and P. Conroy
Astronomy & Astrophysics 558, A55, 2013
Physical properties of the WASP-44 planetary system from simultaneous multi-colour photometry
L. Mancini, N. Nikolov, J. Southworth, G. Chen, J. J. Fortney, J. Tregloan-Reed, S. Ciceri, R. van Boekel, Th. Henning
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 430, 2932-2942, 2013
A lower radius and mass for the transiting extrasolar planet HAT-P-8 b
L. Mancini, J. Southworth, S. Ciceri, J. J. Fortney, C. V. Morley, J. A. Dittmann, J. Tregloan-Reed, I. Bruni, M.
Barbieri, D. F. Evans, G. D'Ago, N. Nikolov, Th. Henning
Astronomy & Astrophysics 551, A11 (11pp), 2013
Title
in costruzione......
Projects
in costruzione......
