Related papers: Pathway Toward a Mid-Infrared Interferometer for t…
Future missions, including the Habitable Worlds Observatory, will aim to image Earth-like exoplanets around Sun-like stars in reflected light. Determining whether an exoplanet is in the habitable zone of its star may be difficult in…
Stars of late-M and L spectral types, collectively known as Ultracool Dwarfs (UCDs), may be excellent targets for searches for extrasolar planets. Owing to their small radii, the signal from an Earth-size planet transiting a UCD is, in…
Understanding the surface and atmospheric conditions of Earth-size, rocky planets in the habitable zones (HZs) of low-mass stars is currently one of the greatest astronomical endeavors. Knowledge of the planetary effective surface…
We present THERMAP, a mid-infrared (8-16 {\mu}m) spectro-imager for space missions to small bodies in the inner solar system, developed in the framework of the MarcoPolo-R asteroid sample return mission. THERMAP is very well suited to…
Space-borne nulling interferometers have long been considered as the best option for searching and characterizing extra-solar planets located in the habitable zone of their parent stars. Solutions for achieving deep starlight extinction are…
The motivation to build spaceborne interferometric arrays for low-frequency radio astronomy is widely recognised because frequencies below the ionospheric cutoff are inaccessible for ground-based radio telescopes. We discuss the theoretical…
Understanding exoplanet formation and finding potentially habitable exoplanets is vital to an enhanced understanding of the universe. The use of nulling interferometry to strongly attenuate the central starlight provides the opportunity to…
In this work we investigate the potential of a thermal infrared (IR) space telescope to remotely characterize the component temperatures of a satellite. With the rapid increase in the number of objects launched in recent years, the ability…
Nonlinear interferometers allow for mid-infrared spectroscopy with near-infrared detection using correlated photons. Previous implementations have demonstrated a spectral resolution limited by spectrally selective detection. In our work, we…
A key to understand exoplanets is characterisation of their host stars. One of the most powerful tools to characterise stellar properties like effective temperature, surface gravity and metallicity, is spectroscopy based on observations of…
Dark-field contrast imaging with grating interferometers has proven to hold huge potential for numerous applications with X-rays and with neutrons conveying biology and medicine as well as engineering and magnetism, respectively. However, a…
In recent years, high-resolution transmission spectroscopy in the near-infrared has led to detections of prominent molecules in several giant exoplanets on close-in orbits. This approach has traditionally relied on the large Doppler shifts…
Resolving high-contrast targets is a fundamental yet highly challenging task in astronomy. Using quantum estimation theory, we demonstrate that the ultimate limit for estimating the separation between two unequal-brightness thermal sources…
This brief review focuses on methods and applications of modeling exoplanetary atmospheres. We discuss various kinds of state of the art self-consistent and retrieval models in 1D and multi-D with a focus on open questions and short- and…
In a companion paper, we introduced a publicly-available pipeline to characterise exoplanet atmospheres through high-resolution spectroscopy. In this paper, we use this pipeline to study the biases and degeneracies that arise in atmospheric…
In this work, we investigate the properties of young giant planet spectra in the optical and suggest that future space-based direct imaging missions should be considering young planets as a valuable and informative science case. While young…
We present the scientific case to build a multiple-wavelength, active, near-infrared (NIR) instrument to measure the reflected intensity and polarization characteristics of backscattered radiation from planetary surfaces and atmospheres. We…
Terrestrial planetary systems may exist around nearby stars as the Earth-sized counterparts to the many giant planets already discovered within the solar neighborhood. In this chapter we first discuss the numerous techniques which have been…
Measuring temperature fields in semi-transparent media requires the knowledge of material thermo-optic properties. While the current techniques are well established for isothermal thin films, they remain unexplored for thick media where…
We address three major questions in astronomy, namely the detection of biosignatures on habitable exoplanets, the geophysics of exoplanets and cosmology. To achieve this goal, two requirements are needed. First a very large aperture to…