Related papers: Direct Imaging of Exoplanets Without Background Su…
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…
Various structures are visible within Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch instrument (SPHERE) images that are not always straightforward to interpret. In this article we present a review of these features and demonstrate…
Understanding how giant and terrestrial planets form and evolve, what is their internal structure and that of their atmosphere, represents one of the major challenges of modern astronomy, which is directly connected to the ultimate search…
With the increasing number of directly imaged giant exoplanets the current atmosphere models are often not capable of fully explaining the spectra and luminosity of the sources. A particularly challenging component of the atmosphere models…
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…
Ground based Cherenkov telescope systems measure astrophysical gamma-ray emission against a background of cosmic-ray induced air showers. The subtraction of this background is a major challenge for the extraction of spectra and morphology…
The classical picture of our Solar System being the archetypal outcome of planet formation has been rendered obsolete by the astonishing diversity of extrasolar-system architectures. From rare hot-Jupiters to abundant super-Earths and…
Angular differential imaging provides a novel way of probing the high contrast of our universe. Until now, its applications have been primarily localized to searching for exoplanets around nearby stars. This work presents a suite of…
Direct imaging is the primary technique currently used to detect young and warm exoplanets and understand their formation scenarios. The extreme flux ratio between an exoplanet and its host star requires the use of coronagraphs to attenuate…
The upcoming extremely large telescopes will provide the first opportunity to search for signs of habitability and life on non-transiting terrestrial exoplanets using high-contrast, high-resolution instrumentation. However, the suite of…
In recent years, there has been a proliferation of wide-field sky surveys to search for a variety of transient objects. Using relatively short focal lengths, the optics of these systems produce undersampled stellar images often marred by a…
We present a novel machine-learning approach for detecting faint point sources in high-contrast adaptive optics imaging datasets. The most widely used algorithms for primary subtraction aim to decouple bright stellar speckle noise from…
We use Monte Carlo simulations to estimate the number of extrasolar planets that are directly detectable in the solar-neighborhood using current and forthcoming high-contrast imaging instruments. Our calculations take into account the…
Direct detection and characterization of Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars is a core task for evaluating the prevalence of habitability and life in the Universe. Here, we discuss a promising option for achieving this goal, which is…
The Galactic centre and its surrounding space are important in studying galaxy-scale evolution, and stellar populations therein are expected to have imprints of the long-term evolution. Interstellar extinction, however, severely limits…
The direct imaging from the ground of extrasolar planets has become today a major astronomical and biological focus. This kind of imaging requires simultaneously the use of a dedicated high performance Adaptive Optics [AO] system and a…
The best-characterized exoplanets to date are planets on close-in transiting orbits around their host stars. The high level of irradiation and transiting geometry of these objects make them ideal targets for atmospheric investigations.…
Exoplanet detection by direct imaging is a difficult task: the faint signals from the objects of interest are buried under a spatially structured nuisance component induced by the host star. The exoplanet signals can only be identified when…
Exoplanet research is essential for understanding planetary formation and the potential for life beyond our solar system. The direct imaging method captures exoplanet light while minimizing light from the host star. This is conventionally…
During their formation and early evolution, rocky planets undergo multiple global melting events due to accretionary collisions with other protoplanets. The detection and characterization of their post-collision afterglows (magma oceans)…