Related papers: SPHERE on-sky performance compared with budget pre…
SPHERE is the high-contrast exoplanet imager and spectrograph installed at the Unit Telescope 3 of the Very Large Telescope. After more than two years of regular operations, we analyse statistically the performance of the adaptive optics…
Observations of circumstellar environments to look for the direct signal of exoplanets and the scattered light from disks has significant instrumental implications. In the past 15 years, major developments in adaptive optics, coronagraphy,…
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…
We present the performance of the Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS) of SPHERE, the high-contrast imager for the ESO VLT telescope designed to perform imaging and spectroscopy of extrasolar planets, obtained from tests performed at the…
Measuring the orbits of directly-imaged exoplanets requires precise astrometry at the milliarcsec level over long periods of time due to their wide separation to the stars ($\gtrsim$10 au) and long orbital period ($\gtrsim$20 yr). To reach…
Next year the second generation instrument SPHERE will begin science operations at the Very Large Telecope (ESO). This instrument will be dedicated to the search for exoplanets through the direct imaging techniques, with the new generation…
The new planet finder for the Very Large Telescope (VLT), the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE), just had its first light in Paranal. A dedicated instrument for the direct detection of planets, SPHERE, is…
SPHERE (Beuzit et al,. 2019) has now been in operation at the VLT for more than 5 years, demonstrating a high level of performance. SPHERE has produced outstanding results using a variety of operating modes, primarily in the field of direct…
Context. Since 1995 and the first discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star, 4000 exoplanets have been discovered using several techniques. However, only a few of these exoplanets were detected through direct imaging. Indeed,…
Orbital monitoring of exoplanetary and stellar systems is fundamental for analysing their architecture, dynamical stability and evolution, and mechanisms of formation. Current high-contrast extreme-adaptive optics imagers like SPHERE, GPI,…
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…
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…
SPHERE is an instrument designed and built by a consortium of French, German, Italian, Swiss and Dutch institutes in collaboration with ESO. The project is currently in its Phase B. The main goal of SPHERE is to gain at least one order of…
SPHERE+ is a proposed upgrade of the SPHERE instrument at the VLT, which is intended to boost the current performances of detection and characterization for exoplanets and disks. SPHERE+ will also serve as a demonstrator for the future…
Context: High contrast imaging is a powerful technique to detect and characterize planetary companions at large orbital separations from their parent stars. Aims: We aim at studying the limiting magnitude of the VLT/SPHERE Adaptive Optics…
The planetary system discovered around the young A-type HR8799 provides a unique laboratory to: a) test planet formation theories, b) probe the diversity of system architectures at these separations, and c) perform comparative…
The detection and characterization of extrasolar planets with SPHERE (Spectro Polarimetric High contrast Exoplanet REsearch) is challenging and in particular relies on the ability of a coronagraph to attenuate the diffracted starlight.…
CONTEXT. Little is known about the planetary systems around single white dwarfs although there is strong evidence that they do exist. AIMS. We performed a pilot study with the extreme-AO system on the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast…
The consortium of the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch installed at the Very Large Telescope (SPHERE/VLT) has been operating its guaranteed observation time (260 nights over five years) since February 2015. The main…
Aims. We present simulations of the perfomances of the future SPHERE IFS instrument designed for imaging extrasolar planets in the near infrared (Y, J, and H bands). Methods. We used the IDL package code for adaptive optics simulation…