Related papers: Data Analysis for Precision Spectroscopy: the ESPR…
Since 2014, MUSE, the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, is in operation at the ESO-VLT. It combines a superb spatial sampling with a large wavelength coverage. By design, MUSE is an integral-field instrument, but its field-of-view and…
We aim at searching for exoplanets on the whole ESO/VLT-SPHERE archive with improved and unsupervised data analysis algorithm that could allow to detect massive giant planets at 5 au. To prepare, test and optimize our approach, we gathered…
With high-resolution spectroscopy we can study exoplanet atmospheres and learn about their chemical composition, temperature profiles, and presence of clouds and winds, mainly in hot, giant planets. State-of-the-art instrumentation is…
The ESO Public Survey Southern H-ATLAS Regions Ks-band Survey (SHARKS) comprises 300 square degrees of deep imaging at 2.2 microns (the Ks band) with the VISTA InfraRed CAMera (VIRCAM) at the 4-metre Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope…
At optical wavelengths, an exoplanet's signature is essentially reflected light from the host star - several orders of magnitude fainter. Since it is superimposed on the star spectrum its detection has been a difficult observational…
The development of state-of-the-art spectrographs has ushered in a new era in the detection and characterization of exoplanetary systems. Our objective is to utilize the high-resolution and precision capabilities of the ESPRESSO instrument…
Extrasolar planets observation and characterization by high contrast imaging instruments is set to be a very important subject in observational astronomy. Dedicated instruments are being developed to achieve this goal with very high…
The observational evidence for the acceleration of the universe demonstrates that canonical theories of cosmology and particle physics are incomplete, if not incorrect, and that new physics is out there, waiting to be discovered.…
Transmission spectroscopy facilitates the detection of molecules and/or clouds in the atmospheres of exoplanets. Such studies rely heavily on space-based or large ground-based observatories, as one needs to perform time- resolved, high…
This paper describes the observations and the first data release (DR1) of the ESO public spectroscopic survey "VANDELS, a deep VIMOS survey of the CANDELS CDFS and UDS fields". VANDELS' main targets are star-forming galaxies at 2.4<z<5.5…
Spectral type recognition is an important and fundamental step of large sky survey projects in the data reduction for further scientific research, like parameter measurement and statistic work. It tends out to be a huge job to manually…
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…
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,…
High quality wavelength calibration is crucial for science cases like radial-velocity studies of exoplanets, the search for a possible variation of fundamental constants, and the redshift drift experiment. However, for state-of-the-art…
Observing at the VLT Coude focus can boost the collecting area by combining light from multiple VLT unit telescopes (UTs; albeit with some losses in the light train). An instrument at the Coude enjoys significant operational flexibility…
There is a growing interest in astrophysical tests of the stability of dimensionless fundamental couplings, such as the fine-structure constant $\alpha$, as an optimal probe of new physics. The imminent arrival of the ESPRESSO spectrograph…
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,…
Understanding the formation, evolution, and chemical diversity of exoplanets are now central areas of astrophysics research. White dwarfs provide a uniquely sensitive laboratory for studying the end stages of planetary-system evolution and…
The second-generation instrument SPHERE, dedicated to high-contrast imaging, will soon be in operation on the European Very Large Telescope. Such an instrument relies on an extreme adaptive optics system coupled with a coronagraph that…
We describe automatic procedures for the selection of DA white dwarfs in the Hamburg/ESO objective-prism survey (HES). For this purpose, and the selection of other stellar objects (e.g., metal-poor stars and carbon stars), a flexible,…