Related papers: Characterizing the atmosphere of Proxima b with a …
The nearby exoplanet Proxima Centauri b will be a prime future target for characterization, despite questions about its retention of water. Climate models with static oceans suggest that an Earth-like Proxima b could harbor a small dayside…
Which rocky exoplanets have atmospheres? This presumably simply question is the first that must be answered to understand the prevalence of nearby habitable planets. A mere 6.9 pc from Earth, LTT 1445A is the closest transiting M-dwarf…
We present deep Keck/NIRC2 1.6 and 3.8 $\mu m$ imaging of Fomalhaut to constrain the near-infrared (IR) brightness of Fomalhaut b, recently confirmed as a likely planet (Currie et al. 2012a), and search for additional planets at r_proj =…
Understanding a planet's atmosphere is a necessary condition for understanding not only the planet itself, but also its formation, structure, evolution, and habitability, This puts a premium on obtaining spectra, and developing credible…
Vega may have a massive companion in a wide orbit, as evidenced by structure in its cold dust debris. We have tested this hypothesis by direct imaging with adaptive optics in the M band. The observations were made with a newly commissioned…
The nearby transiting rocky exoplanet LTT 1445A b presents an ideal target for studying atmospheric retention in terrestrial planets orbiting M dwarfs. It is cooler than many rocky exoplanets yet tested for atmospheres, receiving a…
Determining the presence of widely separated substellar-mass companion is crucial to understand the dynamics of inner planets in extrasolar planetary systems (e.g. to explain their high mean eccentricity as inner planets are perturbed by…
Searching for extrasolar planets by direct detection is extremely challenging for current instrumentation. Indirect methods, that measure the effect of a planet on its host star, are much more promising and have indeed led to the discovery…
A variety of terrestrial planets with different physical parameters and exotic atmospheres might plausibly exist outside our Solar System, waiting to be detected by the next generation of space-exploration missions. Some of these planets…
In this paper, we review the various ways in which an infrared stellar interferometer can be used to perform direct detection of extrasolar planetary systems. We first review the techniques based on classical stellar interferometry, where…
At a distance of 1.295 parsecs, the red-dwarf Proxima Centauri ($\alpha$ Centauri C, GL 551, HIP 70890, or simply Proxima) is the Sun's closest stellar neighbor and one of the best studied low-mass stars. It has an effective temperature of…
We present results of simulations of the climate of the newly discovered planet Proxima Centauri B, performed using the Met Office Unified Model (UM). We examine the responses of both an `Earth-like' atmosphere and simplified nitrogen and…
Imaging terrestrial exoplanets around nearby stars is a formidable technical challenge, requiring the development of coronagraphs to suppress the stellar halo of diffracted light at the location of the planet. In this review, we derive the…
An international group of scientists has begun planning for the Planet Formation Imager (PFI, www.planetformationimager.org), a next-generation infrared interferometer array with the primary goal of imaging the active phases of planet…
Giant exoplanets on 10-100 au orbits have been directly imaged around young stars. The peak of the thermal emission from these warm young planets is in the near-infrared (~1-5 microns), whereas mature, temperate exoplanets (i.e., those…
The mid-infrared (IR) regime is well suited to directly detect the thermal signatures of exoplanets in our solar neighborhood. The NEAR experiment: demonstration of high-contrast imaging (HCI) capability at ten microns, can reach sub-mJy…
The physical characterization of exoplanets will require to take spectra at several orbital positions. For that purpose, a direct imaging capability is necessary. Direct imaging requires an efficient stellar suppression mechanism,…
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.…
Imaging the direct light signal from a faint exoplanet against the overwhelming glare of its host star presents one of the fundamental challenges to modern astronomical instrumentation. Achieving sufficient signal-to-noise for detection by…
Radio interferometry is the current method of choice for deep space astronomy, but in the past few decades optical techniques have become increasingly common. This research seeks to characterize the performance of aperture masking…