Starspots meet planets: A new tool to investigate the physics of transiting exoplanetary systems around active stars

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We propose to utilize the high-precision long-term photometry obtained with the Kepler and CoRoT space telescopes to study extrasolar planets orbiting active stars. The primary goals of the proposed investigations are the measurement of spin-orbit (mis-)alignment through a systematic and comprehensive analysis of spot-crossing events in a larger sample of transiting systems, as well as a systematic search for secondary eclipses in these data when the planet is occulted by the host star.Measurements of the spin-orbit alignment are important for a statistical assessment of the architecture of extrasolar planetary systems and the measurement of secondary eclipses and their depth provide the unique opportunity to measure the geometric albedo of extrasolar planets, which in turn allows to draw conclusions on their atmospheres.The here proposed research project is directly related to one of the two fundamental questions forming the basis of SPP~1992 (``What does the diversity of exoplanets tell us about their formation processes and the evolution of planets and planetary systems?'') and the proposed research specifically includes the science areas in the announcement of the Priority Programme ''Exploring the Diversity of Extrasolar Planets'' (SPP 1992) under www.dfg.de/foerderung/info_wissenschaft/info_wissenschaft_16_46/index.html, viz.the observational characterization of exoplanetary properties and an understanding of their formation and evolution processes.