Related papers: Portable Adaptive Optics for Exoplanet Imaging

The two main advantages of exoplanet imaging are the discovery of objects in the outer part of stellar systems -- constraining models of planet formation --, and its ability to spectrally characterize the planets -- information on their…

Context. Modern space telescopes are currently providing high-precision light curves for a large fraction of the sky, such that many new variable stars are being discovered. However, some stars have periodic variability with periods of…

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…

Context. Adaptive optics (AO) systems greatly increase the resolution of large telescopes, but produce complex point spread function (PSF) shapes, varying in time and across the field of view. This PSF must be accurately known since it…

We present the first astronomical observations obtained with an Apodizing Phase Plate (APP). The plate is designed to suppress the stellar diffraction pattern by 5 magnitudes from 2-9 lambda/D over a 180 degree region. Stellar images were…

We present a massive accreting gap (MAG) planet model that ensures large gaps in transitional disks are kept dust free by the scattering action of three co-planar quasi-circular planets in a 1:2:4 Mean Motion Resonance (MMR). This model…

Bright single and binary stars were observed at the 4.1-m telescope with a fast electron-multiplication camera in the regime of partial turbulence correction by the visible-light adaptive optics system. We compare the angular resolution…

In ground-based high-contrast instruments, non-common path aberrations (NCPAs) limit detection performance, as they are unseen by the adaptive optics (AO) wavefront sensor but impact the astrophysical image, creating quasi-static speckles.…

Motivated by the possibility that a coronagraph will be put on WFIRST/AFTA, we explore the direct detectability of extrasolar giant planets (EGPs) in the optical. We quantify a planet's detectability by the fraction of its orbit for which…

The exoplanetary science through direct imaging and spectroscopy will largely expand with the forthcoming development of new instruments at the VLT (SPHERE), Gemini (GPI), Subaru (HiCIAO), and Palomar (Project 1640) observatories. All these…

We present results of the CFHT adaptive optics search for companions of a homogeneous group of contact binary stars, as a contribution to our attempts to prove a hypothesis that these binaries require a third star to become so close as…

Context. Direct imaging of exoplanets takes advantage of state-of-the-art adaptive optics (AO) systems, coronagraphy, and post-processing techniques. Coronagraphs attenuate starlight to mitigate the unfavorable flux ratio between an…

The Telescope to Observe Planetary Systems (TOPS) is a proposed space mission to image in the visible (0.4-0.9 micron) planetary systems of nearby stars simultaneously in 16 spectral bands (resolution R~20). For the ~10 most favorable…

Exoplanet imaging has thus far enabled studies of wide-orbit ($>$10 AU) giant planet ($>$2 Jupiter masses) formation and giant planet atmospheres, with future 30 meter-class Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) needed to image and characterize…

A combination of high-resolution and wide-field imaging reveals two binary stars and one triple star system among the sample of the first 11 stars with planets detected by radial velocity variations. High resolution speckle or adaptive…

Astronomical adaptive optics systems are used to increase effective telescope resolution. However, they cannot be used to observe the whole sky since one or more natural guide stars of sufficient brightness must be found within the…

We propose the application of coronagraphic techniques to the spectroscopic direct detection of exoplanets via the Doppler shift of planetary molecular lines. Even for an unresolved close-in planetary system, we show that the combination of…

We describe the current performance of the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) instrument on the Subaru telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii and present early science results for SCExAO coupled with the CHARIS integral field…

The direct detection and imaging of exoplanets requires the use of high-contrast adaptive optics (AO). In these systems quasi-static aberrations need to be highly corrected and calibrated. In order to achieve this, the pupil-modulated…

In this paper we present the coordinates of 67 55' x 55' patches of sky which have the rare combination of both high stellar surface density (>0.5 arcmin^{-2} with 13<R<16.5 mag) and low extinction (E(B-V)<0.1). These fields are ideal for…