Related papers: Planet Formation Imager (PFI): Introduction and Te…
The physical and chemical conditions in young protoplanetary disks set the boundary conditions for planet formation. Although the dust in disks is relatively easily detected as a far-IR photometric ``excess'' over the expected photospheric…
The far-IR spectral window plays host to a wide range of both spectroscopic and photometric diagnostics with which to open the protoplanetary disks and exoplanet research to wavelengths completely blocked by the Earth's atmosphere. These…
The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) has as its science instrument an infrared integral field spectrograph/polarimeter (IFS). Integral field spectrographs are scientificially powerful but require sophisticated data reduction systems. For GPI to…
Space interferometry is the inevitable endpoint of high angular resolution astrophysics, and a key technology that can be leveraged to analyse exoplanet formation and atmospheres with exceptional detail. However, the anticipated cost of…
Planet formation remains a fundamentally important yet poorly understood process. Protoplanetary disks, the birthplaces of planetary systems, exhibit a wide range of substructures that are increasingly interpreted as signatures of…
The study of protoplanetary disks has become increasingly important with the Kepler satellite finding that exoplanets are ubiquitous around stars in our galaxy and the discovery of enormous diversity in planetary system architectures and…
The far-IR range is a critical wavelength range to characterize the physical and chemical processes that transform the interstellar material into stars and planets. Objects in the earliest phases of stellar and planet evolution release most…
Interferometric observations of protoplanetary disks by VLTI and ALMA have greatly improved our understanding of the detailed structure of these planetary birthplaces. These observations have revealed a variety of large-scale disk…
Imaging circumstellar disks in the near-infrared provides unprecedented information about the formation and evolution of planetary systems. However, current post-processing techniques for high-contrast imaging using ground-based telescopes…
The quest for other habitable worlds and the search for life among them are major goals of modern astronomy. One way to make progress towards these goals is to obtain high-quality spectra of a large number of exoplanets over a broad range…
Our understanding of the process of terrestrial planet formation has grown markedly over the past 20 years, yet key questions remain. This review begins by first addressing the critical, earliest stage of dust coagulation and concentration.…
A mid-infrared nulling-space interferometer is a promising way to characterize thermal light from habitable planet candidates around Sun-like stars. However, one of the main challenges for achieving this ambitious goal is a high-precision…
The far-infrared (far-IR) spectral window plays host to a wide range of spectroscopic diagnostics with which to study planetary disk systems and exoplanets at wavelengths completely blocked by the Earth atmosphere. These include the thermal…
The initial conditions, physics, and outcome of planet formation are now constrained by detailed observations of protoplanetary disks, laboratory experiments, and the discovery of thousands of extrasolar planetary systems. These…
Planet formation around one component of a tight, eccentric binary system such as $\gamma$ Cephei (with semimajor axis around 20 AU) is theoretically challenging because of destructive high-velocity collisions between planetesimals. Despite…
Interest in the study of magnetic fields and the properties of interstellar dust, explored through increasingly capable far-IR/submillimeter polarimetry, along with maturing detector technology, have set the stage for a transformative leap…
The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is a high-contrast imaging instrument designed to directly image and characterize exoplanets. GPI is currently undergoing several upgrades to improve performance. In this paper, we discuss the upgrades to the…
We present Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) adaptive optics near-infrared images of the giant planet-forming regions of the protoplanetary disk orbiting the nearby (D = 54 pc), pre-main sequence (classical T Tauri) star TW Hydrae. The GPI images,…
We consider current state of star formation theory and requirements to observations in millimeter and submillimeter ranges which are necessary for resolution of the most actual problems of the physics of star formation. Two key features of…
Planet formation is a hugely dynamic process requiring the transport, concentration and assimilation of gas and dust to form the first planetesimals and cores. With access to extremely high spatial and spectral resolution observations at…