Related papers: The ExoEarth Yield Landscape for Future Direct Ima…
We present an analytic theory for the resolution attainable via eclipse mapping of exoplanets, based on the Fourier components of the brightness distribution on the planetary disk. We find that the impact parameter determines which features…
We explore the science power of space telescopes used to estimate the true masses of known radial-velocity exoplanets by means of astrometry on direct images. We translate a desired mass accuracy (+/10% in our example) into a minimum goal…
The Roman Space Telescope will have the first advanced coronagraph in space, with deformable mirrors for wavefront control, low-order wavefront sensing and maintenance, and a photon-counting detector. It is expected to be able to detect and…
The next generation of ground-based instruments aims to break through the knowledge we have on exoplanets by imaging circumstellar environments always closer to the stars. However, direct imaging requires an AO system and high-contrast…
We present an overview of the EXoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer (EXCEDE), selected by NASA for technology development and maturation. EXCEDE will study the formation, evolution and architectures of exoplanetary…
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Roman), under development by NASA, will investigate possible causes for the phenomenon of dark energy and detect and characterize extra-solar planets. The 2.4 m space telescope has two main…
NIRCam and MIRI coronagraphy have successfully demonstrated the ability to directly image young sub-Jupiter mass and mature gas-giant exoplanets. However, these modes struggle to reach the sensitivities needed to find the population of cold…
Polarimetry is one of the keys to enhanced direct imaging of exoplanets. Not only does it deliver a differential observable providing extra contrast, but when coupled with spectroscopy, it also reveals valuable information on the…
Survey strategies for upcoming exoplanet direct imaging missions have considered varying assumptions of prior knowledge. Precursor radial velocity surveys could have detected nearby exo-Earths and provided prior orbit and mass constraints.…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will enable the search for and characterization of terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres in the habitable zone via transmission spectroscopy. However, relatively little work has been done to use solar…
The direct detection of exoplanets has been the subject of intensive research in the recent years. Data obtained with future high-contrast imaging instruments optimized for giant planets direct detection are strongly limited by the speckle…
Small telescopes equiped with modern instrumentation are gaining on importance, especially, in the era of exoplanetary space missions such as TESS, PLATO and ARIEL. Crucial part of every planet hunting mission is now a ground-based…
Directly observing exoplanets with coronagraphs is impeded by the presence of speckles from aberrations in the optical path, which can be mitigated in hardware with wavefront control as well as in post-processing. This work explores using…
The EXoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer (EXCEDE) science mission concept uses a visible-wavelength Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization (PIAA) coronagraph to enable high-contrast imaging of circumstellar debris systems…
Small-angle coronagraphy is technically and scientifically appealing because it enables the use of smaller telescopes, allows covering wider wavelength ranges, and potentially increases the yield and completeness of circumstellar…
The influence of the microstructure of a polycrystalline material on its macroscopic deformation response is still one of the major problems in materials engineering. For materials characterized by elastic-plastic deformation responses,…
As adaptive optics technology continues to improve, the stellar coronagraph will play an ever increasing role in ground-based high-contrast imaging observations. Though several different image masks exist for the most common type of…
We report new methods for evaluating realistic observing programs that search stars for planets by direct imaging, where observations are selected from an optimized star list, and where stars can be observed multiple times. We show how…
We explore the capabilities of a starshade mission to directly image multi-star systems. In addition to the diffracted and scattered light for the on-axis star, a multi-star system features additional starlight leakage from the off-axis…
Direct imaging of exoplanets requires to separate the background noise from the exoplanet signals. Statistical methods have been recently proposed to avoid subtracting any signal of interest as opposed to initial self-subtracting methods…