Upgrading the high contrast imaging facility SPHERE: science drivers and instrument choices
Abstract
SPHERE+ is a proposed upgrade of the SPHERE instrument at the VLT, which is intended to boost the current performances of detection and characterization for exoplanets and disks. SPHERE+ will also serve as a demonstrator for the future planet finder (PCS) of the European ELT. The main science drivers for SPHERE+ are 1/ to access the bulk of the young giant planet population down to the snow line ( au), to bridge the gap with complementary techniques (radial velocity, astrometry); 2/ to observe fainter and redder targets in the youngest (\,Myr) associations compared to those observed with SPHERE to directly study the formation of giant planets in their birth environment; 3/ to improve the level of characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres by increasing the spectral resolution in order to break degeneracies in giant planet atmosphere models. Achieving these objectives requires to increase the bandwidth of the xAO system (from 1 to 3\,kHz) as well as the sensitivity in the infrared (2 to 3\,mag). These features will be brought by a second stage AO system optimized in the infrared with a pyramid wavefront sensor. As a new science instrument, a medium resolution integral field spectrograph will provide a spectral resolution from 1000 to 5000 in the J and H bands. This paper gives an overview of the science drivers, requirements and key instrumental trade-off that were done for SPHERE+ to reach the final selected baseline concept.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2209.02092,
title = {Upgrading the high contrast imaging facility SPHERE: science drivers and instrument choices},
author = {A. Boccaletti and G. Chauvin and F. Wildi and J. Milli and E. Stadler and E. Diolaiti and R. Gratton and F. Vidal and M. Loupias and M. Langlois and F. Cantalloube and M. N'Diaye and D. Gratadour and F. Ferreira and M. Tallon and J. Mazoyer and D. Segransan and D. Mouillet and J. -L. Beuzit and M. Bonnefoy and R. Galicher and A. Vigan and I. Snellen and M. Feldt and S. Desidera and S. Rousseau and A. Baruffolo and C. Goulas and P. Baudoz and C. Bechet and M. Benisty and A. Bianco and B. Carry and E. Cascone and B. Charnay and E. Choquet and V. Christiaens and F. Cortecchia and V. de Caprio and A. De Rosa and C. Desgrange and V. D'Orazi and S. Douté and M. Frangiamore and E. Gendron and C. Ginski and E. Huby and C. Keller and C. Kulcsár and R. Landman and S. Lagarde and E. Lagadec and A. -M. Lagrange and M. Lombini M. Kasper and F. Ménard and Y. Magnard and G. Malaguti and D. Maurel and D. Mesa and G. Morgante and E. Pantin and T. Pichon and A. Potier and P. Rabou and S. Rochat and L. Terenzi and E. Thiébaut and I. Tallon-Bosc and H. -F. Raynaud and D. Rouan and A. Sevin and F. Schiavone and L. Schreiber and A. Zanutta},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.02092},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
To appear in the Proceedings of the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation (2022), 13 pages, 6 figure