Related papers: Simultaneous exoplanet detection and instrument ab…
Direct imaging of extrasolar planets with future space-based coronagraphic telescopes may provide a means of detecting companion moons at wavelengths where the moon outshines the planet. We propose a detection strategy based on the…
Direct imaging of exoplanets is particularly challenging due to the high contrast between the planet and the star luminosities, and their small angular separation. In addition to tailored instrumental facilities implementing adaptive optics…
High contrast imaging and spectroscopy provide unique constraints for exoplanet formation models as well as for planetary atmosphere models. But this can be challenging because of the planet-to-star small angular separation and high flux…
The dark-speckle method (Labeyrie 1995) combines features of speckle interferometry and adaptive optics to provide images of faint circumstellar material. We present preliminary results of observations, and simulations concluding to the…
The high-contrast coronagraph for direct imaging earth-like exoplanet at the visible needs a contrast of 10^(-10) at a small angular separation of 4 lambda/D or less. Here we report our recent laboratory experiment that is close to the…
Direct imaging of exoplanets represents a challenge for astronomical instrumentation due to the high-contrast ratio and small angular separation between the host star and the faint planet. Multi-star systems pose additional challenges for…
Optical imperfections, misalignments, aberrations, and even dust can significantly limit sensitivity in high-contrast imaging systems such as coronagraphs. An upstream deformable mirror (DM) in the pupil can be used to correct or compensate…
Directly observing exoplanets with coronagraphs is impeded by the presence of speckles from aberrations in the optical path, which can be mitigated in hardware with wavefront control as well as in post-processing. This work explores using…
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…
In a previous paper, we discussed an original solution to improve the performances of coronagraphs by adding, in the optical scheme, an adaptive hologram removing most of the residual speckle starlight. In our simulations, the detection…
Direct imaging and spectral characterization of exoplanets using extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) is a key science goal of future extremely large telescopes and space observatories. However, quasi-static wavefront errors will limit the…
Spectroscopic observations are extremely important for determining the composition, structure, and surface gravity of exoplanetary atmospheres. High resolution spectroscopy of the planet itself has only been demonstrated a handful of times.…
So far, most of the about 5700 exoplanets have been discovered mainly with radial velocity and transit methods. These techniques are sensitive to planets in close orbits, not being able to probe large star--planet separations. $\mu$-lensing…
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…
The second-generation instrument SPHERE, dedicated to high-contrast imaging, will soon be in operation on the European Very Large Telescope. Such an instrument relies on an extreme adaptive optics system coupled with a coronagraph that…
In long adaptive optics corrected exposures, exoplanet detections are currently limited by speckle noise originating from the telescope and instrument optics, and it is expected that such noise will also limit future high-contrast imaging…
This paper is concerned with the theoretical properties of high contrast coronagraphic images in the context of exoplanet searches. We derive and analyze the statistical properties of the residual starlight in coronagraphic images, and…
SPHERE (Spectro Polarimetric High contrast Exoplanet REsearch), the planet finder instrument for the VLT is designed to study relatively bright extrasolar giant planets around young or nearby stars. SPHERE is a set of three instruments fed…
Imaging exo-Earths is an exciting but challenging task because of the 10^-10 contrast ratio between these planets and their host star at separations narrower than 100 mas. Large segmented aperture space telescopes enable the sensitivity…
Aims. We present a solution to improve the performance of coronagraphs for the detection of exo-planets. Methods. We simulate numerically several kinds of coronagraphic systems, with the aim of evaluating the gain obtained with an adaptive…