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Refraction deflects photons that pass through atmospheres, which affectstransit light curves. Refraction thus provides an avenue to probe physicalproperties of exoplanet atmospheres and to constrain the presence of clouds andhazes. In addition, an effective surface can be imposed by refraction, therebylimiting the pressure levels probed by transmission spectroscopy. The mainobjective of the paper is to model the effects of refraction on photometriclight curves for realistic planets and to explore the dependencies onatmospheric physical parameters. We also explore under which circumstancestransmission spectra are significantly affected by refraction. Finally, wesearch for refraction signatures in photometric residuals in Kepler data. Weuse the model of Hui & Seager (2002) to compute deflection angles andrefraction transit light curves, allowing us to explore the parameter space ofatmospheric properties. The observational search is performed by stacking largesamples of transit light curves from Kepler. We find that out-of-transitrefraction shoulders are the most easily observable features, which can reachpeak amplitudes of ~10 parts per million (ppm) for planets around Sun-likestars. More typical amplitudes are a few ppm or less for Jovians and at thesub-ppm level for super-Earths. Interestingly, the signal-to-noise ratio of anyrefraction residuals for planets orbiting Sun-like hosts are expected to besimilar for planets orbiting red dwarfs. We also find that the maximum depthprobed by transmission spectroscopy is not limited by refraction for weaklylensing planets, but that the incidence of refraction can vary significantlyfor strongly lensing planets. We find no signs of refraction features in thestacked Kepler light curves, which is in agreement with our model predictions.

Refraction in exoplanet atmospheres: Photometric signatures, implications for transmission spectroscopy, and search in Kepler data