Papers

Full list of publications
Books written or edited by Professor Seager
Papers listed by Professor Seager’s group members

These are selected publications that Professor Seager led or played an instrumental role in. “First” means the first time the idea or discovery was ever published.

*Current or former student or postdocs in Professor Seager’s research group.

1. Exoplanet Atmospheres

1a. Review Paper from 2010

• Seager, S., & Deming, D. 2010, “Exoplanet Atmospheres”, Ann. Rev. Astron. and Astrophys., 48:631–672.

1b. Foundational exoplanet atmospheres papers

First paper on theoretical exoplanet atmospheres as irradiated by their host star:

• Seager, S., & Sasselov, D. D. 1998, “Extrasolar Giant Planets Under Strong Stellar Irradiation”, ApJ, 502:L157–161.

First paper on exoplanet transmission spectra, including prediction of sodium that led to the first ever exoplanet atmosphere detection:

• Seager, S., & Sasselov, D. D. 2000, “Theoretical Transmission Spectra During an Extrasolar Giant Planet Transit”, ApJ, 537:916–921.

First paper on exoplanet light curves and exoplanet polarization signature:

• Seager, S., Whitney, B. A., & Sasselov, D. D. 2000, “Light Curves and Polarization of the Close-in Extrasolar  Giant Planets”, ApJ, 540:504–520.

First paper describing diurnal light curves of Earth:

• Ford*, E. B., Seager, S., & Turner, E. L. 2001, “Characterization of Extrasolar Terrestrial Planets from Diurnal Photometric Variability”, Nature, 412:885–887.

First paper on exoplanet atmospheric refraction:

• Hui, L., & Seager, S. 2002, “Atmospheric Lensing and Oblateness Effect During an Extrasolar Planetary Transit”, ApJ, 572:540–555.

One of the first papers describing super Earth atmospheres:

• Miller-Ricci*, E.,  Seager, S., & Sasselov, D. 2009, “The Atmospheric Signatures of Super-Earths: How to Distinguish Between Hydrogen-Rich and Hydrogen-Poor Atmospheres”, ApJ, 690:1056–1067.

First paper trying to quantify superEarth atmosphere mass and composition (without success because the problem is unconstrained):

• Elkins-Tanton, L., & Seager, S.  2008, “Range of Masses and Atmospheric Composition for Terrestrial Exoplanets”, ApJ, 685:1237–1246.

Data Intepretation via the million model approach; the first attempt at a thorough parameter space search for exoplanet atmosphere characterization (N. Madhusudhan’s 2009 PhD Thesis):

• Madhusudhan, N., and Seager, S. 2009, “A Temperature and Abundance Retrieval Method for Exoplanet Atmospheres”, ApJ, 707:24–39.

1c. Observational Detections

First (of two independent) detection of light from an exoplanet atmosphere (photometry):

• Deming, D., Seager, S., Richardson, L. J., & Harrington, J. 2005, “Detection of Infrared Radiation from an Extrasolar Planet”, Nature, 434:740–743.

First (of two independent) detection of an exoplanet atmospheric spectrum:

• Richardson, L. J., Deming, D., Horning, K., Seager, S., & Harrington, J. 2007, “A Spectrum of an Extrasolar Planet”, Nature, 445:892–895.

2. Exoplanet Interiors

Explanation of why the exoplanet mass-radius relationships have the same functional form. Based on a modified polytrope for the equation of state:

• Seager, S., Kuchner, M., Hier-Majumder, C. A., & Militzer, 2007, “Mass-Radius Relationships for Solid Exoplanets”, ApJ, 669:1279–1297.

The possibility for coreless terrestrial planets, emphasizing the ambiguity of interpreting planetary interior composition based on a mass and radius alone.

• Elkins-Tanton, L., & Seager, S. 2008, “Coreless Terrestrial Exoplanets”, ApJ, 688:628–635.

First Interpretation of the enigmatic GJ 1214b:

• Rogers*, L. A., & Seager, S. 2010, “Three Possible Origins for the Gas Layer on GJ 1214b”, ApJ, 716:1208–1216.

3. Exoplanet Biosignatures

• Seager, S., Schrenk, M., & Bains, W. 2010, “An Astrophysical View of Earth-Based Metabolic Byproducts”, submitted to Astrobiology.

4. Exoplanet Other Characterization

How to use exoplanet transit light curves alone for  characterization.  This paper is a cornerstone in the path for moving an exoplanet candidate to an actual exoplanet:

• Seager, S., & Mallen-Ornelas, G. 2003, “On the Unique Solution of Planet and Star Parameters from an Extrasolar Planet Transit Light Curve”, ApJ, 585:1038–1055.

How to identify an atmosphereless exoplanet and the first attempt to do so.

• Seager, S., & Deming, D. “On the Method to Infer an Atmosphere on a Tidally-Locked Super Earth Exoplanet and Upper limits to GJ 876d”, ApJ, 703:1884–1889.

5. A New Approach to Exoplanet Data Interpretation

Now that data on exoplanet atmospheres and exoplanet masses and radii has reached a critical point, Professor Seager’s group aims to move theoretical interpretation to a new level.  At present, most atmosphere and interior data interpretation focuses on a few scenarios that fit the data. Professor Seager’s group’s interpretation instead aims to extract the full range of possibilities of atmosphere or interior composition.

Exoplanet atmospheres. The million model approach; the first attempt at a thorough parameter space search for exoplanet atmosphere characterization (N. Madhusudhan’s 2009 PhD Thesis):

• Madhusudhan, N., and Seager, S. 2009, “A Temperature and Abundance Retrieval Method for Exoplanet Atmospheres”, ApJ, 707:24–39.

Exoplanet interiors. The many-model approach for constraining the composition of exoplanet interiors:

• Rogers*, L. A., & Seager, S. 2010, “A Framework for Quantifying the Degeneracies of Exoplanet Interior Compositions”, ApJ, 712:974–991.

6. ExoplanetSat NanoSatellite

Transit Probabilities to quantify how many sun-like stars need to be surveyed to find an Earth-sized planet in an Earth-like orbit, given a stellar inclination constraint and the assumption that planets orbit within several degrees from the equatorial plane:

• Beatty*, T. & Seager, S.  2010 “Transit Probabilities for Stars with Stellar Inclination Constraints”, ApJ, 712:1433–1442.

ExoplanetSat overview and payload from 2010:

• Smith* M. W., Seager, S., Pong, C. M., Villasenor, J. S., Ricker, G. R., Miller, D. W., Knapp, M. E., Farmer, G. T., & Jensen-Clem, R. 2010,  “ExoplanetSat: Detecting Transiting Exoplanets using a Low-Cost CubeSat Platform”, SPIE, 7731:66–78.

ExoplanetSat ADCS from 2010:

• Pong*, C. M., Lim, S., Smith, M. W., Miller, D. W., Villasenor, J. S., & Seager, S. “Achieving High-Precision Pointing on ExoplanetSat: Initial Feasibility Analysis”, SPIE, 7731, 54- 70.