The rotation period is in general easy to detect in regular and well-modulated light curves of young and active stars. However, despite the success of the Kepler and TESS missions, reliable information on rotation periods for Sun-like stars is still lacking (as in about 75% of stars in the Kepler field). Stars with solar-analog variability exhibit non-periodic light curves, low variability...
The orbits of hot Jupiters are expected to decay through tidal interactions between the planet and host star, and this has been observationally confirmed for at least one system. Measuring this tidal orbital decay via transit timing variations allows us to determine the stellar tidal quality factor, Q*. This poorly-understood parameter governs the timescale of many tidal processes, such as the...
Low-mass exoplanets are showing a diversity in their densities and irradiation conditions, ranging from highly irradiated planets to temperate worlds. To estimate their composition, we have developed an interior structure model that includes self-consistently an atmosphere in radiative-convective equilibrium for water and CO$_{2}$ envelopes. We use the model within a Bayesian adaptive Markov...
During the past decade, exoplanet detections have revealed a vast diversity of planets, particularly in the low-mass regime below 20-30 Earth masses. Mass and radius observations are the main constraints to infer the present-day internal structure of these planets whose knowledge provides a starting point to characterize them and answer many fundamental questions in exoplanetary science: How...
