Related papers: Millisecond Exoplanet Imaging, II: Regression Equa…
Direct imaging of exoplanets is usually limited by quasi-static speckles. These uncorrected aberrations in a star's point spread function (PSF) obscure faint companions and limit the sensitivity of high-contrast imaging instruments. Most…
To date, the ability for observers to reveal the composition or thermal structure of an exoplanet's atmosphere has rested on two techniques: high-contrast direct imaging and time-series observations of transiting exoplanets. The former is…
We propose to explore a cascade extreme Adaptive optics (ExAO) approach with a second stage based on a Zernike wavefront sensor (ZWFS) for exoplanet imaging and spectroscopy. Most exoplanet imagers currently use a single-stage ExAO to…
Direct imaging of Earth-like planets from space requires dedicated observatories, combining large segmented apertures with instruments and techniques such as coronagraphs, wavefront sensors, and wavefront control in order to reach the high…
Direct imaging of exoplanets represents a challenge for astronomical instrumentation due to the high-contrast ratio and small angular separation between the host star and the faint planet. Multi-star systems pose additional challenges for…
A new wavefront sensing approach, derived from the successful curvature wavefront sensing concept but using a non-linear phase retrieval wavefront reconstruction scheme, is described. The non-linear curvature wavefront sensor (nlCWFS)…
Technological advances in instrumentation have led to an exponential increase in exoplanet detection and scrutiny of stellar features such as spots and faculae. While the spots and faculae enable us to understand the stellar dynamics,…
Optical aberrations prevent telescopes from reaching their theoretical diffraction limit. Once estimated, these aberrations can be compensated for using deformable mirrors in a closed loop. Focal plane wavefront sensing enables the…
Context. High-contrast exoplanet imaging is a rapidly growing field as can be seen through the significant resources invested. In fact, the detection and characterization of exoplanets through direct imaging is featured at all major…
We propose the application of coronagraphic techniques to the spectroscopic direct detection of exoplanets via the Doppler shift of planetary molecular lines. Even for an unresolved close-in planetary system, we show that the combination of…
Direct imaging of extra-solar planets has now become a reality, especially with the deployment and commissioning of the first generation of specialized ground-based instruments such as the GPI, SPHERE, P1640 and SCExAO. These systems will…
The MPF mission will provide a statistical census of exoplanets with masses greater than 0.1 Earth-masses and orbital separations ranging from 0.5AU to infinity. This includes analogs to all the Solar System's planets except for Mercury, as…
Direct detection and spectroscopy of exoplanets requires high contrast imaging. For habitable exoplanets in particular, located at small angular separation from the host star, it is crucial to employ small inner working angle (IWA)…
High-contrast imaging surveys for exoplanet detection have shown giant planets at large separations to be rare. It is important to push towards detections at smaller separations, the part of the parameter space containing most planets. The…
Transmission spectroscopy has been successfully used from both the ground and in space to characterise the atmospheres of transiting exoplanets. This technique is challenging from the ground because ground-based spectrographs tend not to be…
Direct exoplanet detection is limited by speckle noise in the point spread function (PSF) of the central star. This noise can be reduced by subtracting PSF images obtained simultaneously in adjacent narrow spectral bands using a…
The detection of exoplanets in high-contrast imaging (HCI) data hinges on post-processing methods to remove spurious light from the host star. So far, existing methods for this task hardly utilize any of the available domain knowledge about…
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…
This paper introduces an analytical method to calculate segment-level wavefront error tolerances in order to enable the detection of faint extra-solar planets using segmented telescopes in space. This study provides a full treatment of…
Stellar activity causes difficulties in the characterization of transiting exoplanets. Studies have been performed to quantify its impact on infrared interferometry, but not in the visible domain, which however allows reaching better…