Related papers: Confidence Level and Sensitivity Limits in High Co…
Direct imaging of exoplanets is a challenging task as it requires to reach a high contrast at very close separation to the star. Today, the main limitation in the high-contrast images is the quasi-static speckles that are created by…
(abridged) Imaging observations are generally affected by a fluctuating background of speckles, a particular problem when detecting faint stellar companions at small angular separations. Knowing the distribution of the speckle intensities…
Angular differential imaging is a high-contrast imaging technique that reduces quasi-static speckle noise and facilitates the detection of nearby companions. A sequence of images is acquired with an altitude/azimuth telescope while the…
Over the past decade, hundreds of nights have been spent on the worlds largest telescopes to search for and directly detect new exoplanets using high-contrast imaging (HCI). Thereby, two scientific goals are of central interest: First, to…
We present an algorithm that uses the distribution of photon arrival times to distinguish speckles from incoherent sources, like planets and disks, in high contrast images. Using simulated data, we show that our approach can overcome the…
In High Contrast Imaging, a large instrumental, technological and algorithmic effort is made to reduce residual speckle noise and improve the detection capabilities. In this work, we explore the potential of using a precise physical…
Speckle Noise is the dominant source of error in high contrast imaging with adaptive optics system. We discuss the potential for wavefront sensing telemetry to calibrate speckle noise with sufficient precision and accuracy so that it can be…
High-contrast imaging for the detection and characterization of exoplanets relies on the instrument's capability to block out the light of the host star. Some current post-processing methods for calibrating out the residual speckles use…
Optical stellar interferometers have demonstrated milli-arcsecond resolution with few apertures spaced hundreds of meters apart. To obtain rich direct images, many apertures will be needed, for a better sampling of the incoming wavefront.…
The direct detection of exoplanets has been the subject of intensive research in the recent years. Data obtained with future high-contrast imaging instruments optimized for giant planets direct detection are strongly limited by the speckle…
One of the top remaining science challenges in astronomical optics is the direct imaging and characterization of extrasolar planets and planetary systems. Directly imaging exoplanets from ground-based observatories requires combining…
Angular differential imaging (ADI) (Marois et al. 2006) is an observational technique in high contrast imaging where the telescope is used in pupil tracking mode so that the image of the sky rotates with respect to the optical surfaces.…
In this paper, we review the impact of small sample statistics on detection thresholds and corresponding confidence levels (CLs) in high contrast imaging at small angles. When looking close to the star, the number of resolution elements…
Technological advances in instrumentation have led to an exponential increase in exoplanet detection and scrutiny of stellar features such as spots and faculae. While the spots and faculae enable us to understand the stellar dynamics,…
SCALES (Slicer Combined with Array of Lenslets for Exoplanet Spectroscopy) is a 2 - 5 micron high-contrast lenslet-based integral field spectrograph (IFS) designed to characterize exoplanets and their atmospheres. The SCALES…
Direct imaging of exoplanets requires very high contrast levels, which are obtained using coronagraphs. But residual quasi-static aberrations create speckles in the focal plane downstream of the coronagraph which mask the planet. This…
We describe a new method for measuring the true redshift distribution of any set of objects studied only photometrically. The angular cross-correlation between objects in a photometric sample with objects in some spectroscopic sample as a…
This paper provides a framework for the incorporation of the wavefront sensor measurements in the context of observing modes in which the science camera takes millisecond exposures. In this formulation, the wavefront sensor measurements…
We discuss the feasibility of direct multipixel imaging of exoplanets with the solar gravitational lens (SGL) in the context of a realistic deep space mission. For this, we consider an optical telescope, placed in the image plane that forms…
A noise-based non-parametric technique for detecting nebulous objects, for example, irregular or clumpy galaxies, and their structure in noise is introduced. "Noise-based" and "non-parametric" imply that this technique imposes negligible…