Related papers: The Planet Formation Imager
ESA has identified interferometry as one of the major goals of the Horizon 2000+ programme. Infrared interferometers are a highly sensitive astronomical instruments that enable us to observe terrestrial planets around nearby stars. In this…
Direct imaging characterization of extrasolar planets is often done at low spectral resolution. We model the spectrograph for the Gemini Planet Imager upgrade (GPI 2.0) and assess the instrument's potential for allowing observers to…
The field of planet formation is in an exciting era, where recent observations of disks around low- to intermediate-mass stars made with state of the art interferometers and high-contrast optical and IR facilities have revealed a diversity…
The overarching goal of planetary astronomy is to deduce how the present collection of objects found in our Solar System were formed from the original material present in the proto-solar nebula. As over two hundred exo-planetary systems are…
The Keck Planet Imager and Characterizer (KPIC) is an upgrade to the Keck II adaptive optics system and instrument suite with the goal of improving direct imaging and high-resolution spectroscopic characterization capabilities for giant…
We summarize the status of our program of near-infrared adaptive optics observations of ultracompact HII regions. By means of selected results we demonstrate the usefulness of this technique for disentangling the complexity of massive…
One of the science drivers of the new Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) is large-area surveys of the low-frequency radio sky. Realizing this goal requires automated processing of the interferometric data, such that fully calibrated images are…
The characterization of extrasolar earth-like atmospheres for biosignatures remains one of the most compelling and elusive challenges in astronomy. Coronagraphy, nulling interferometry and free-flying occulters have been advanced as…
The understanding of planet formation has changed recently, embracing the new idea of pebble accretion. This means that the influx of pebbles from the outer regions of planet-forming disks to their inner zones could determine the…
We describe the design, hardware integration, and calibration performance of the Wide-Field Imager (WFI) instruments for the Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission. The WFI instruments are a trio of visible-light…
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…
This chapter discusses the use and possibilities of optical and infrared interferometry to study star formation. The chapter starts with a brief overview of the star formation process and highlights the open questions from an observational…
Cool Planet Imaging Coronagraph (CPI-C) on Chinese Space Station Survey Telescope (CSST) is proposed to direct image the cool planets around nearby solar-type stars (within 40 pc). The core scientific objective of CPI-C is to conduct…
The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) Coronagraph Instrument (CGI) is a high-contrast imager and integral field spectrograph that will enable the study of exoplanets and circumstellar disks at visible wavelengths. Ground-based…
Nulling interferometry is a technique providing high angular resolution which is the core of the space missions Darwin and the Terrestrail Planet Finder. The first objective is to reach a deep degree of starlight cancelation in the range 6…
The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is a new facility instrument for the Gemini Observatory designed to provide direct detection and characterization of planets and debris disks around stars in the solar neighborhood. In addition to its extreme…
Direct imaging instruments have the spatial resolution to resolve exoplanets from their host star. This enables direct characterization of the exoplanets atmosphere, but most direct imaging instruments do not have spectrographs with high…
The detection and characterisation of extra-solar planets is a major theme driving modern astronomy, with the vast majority of such measurements being achieved by Doppler radial-velocity and transit observations. Another technique -- direct…
Detection of forming planets means detection of the circumplanetary disk (CPD) in reality, since the planet is still surrounded by a disk at this evolutionary stage. Yet, no comprehensive CPD modeling was done in near-infrared wavelengths,…
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…