Related papers: Improving VLT/SPHERE without additional hardware: …

In the field of planet and proto-planetary disk detection, achieving high angular resolution and high dynamic range is a necessity. Coronography coupled with adaptive optics on Hubble Space Telescope is a way to get both good spatial…

Less than 3% of the known exoplanets were directly imaged for two main reasons. They are angularly very close to their parent star, which is several magnitudes brighter. Direct imaging of exoplanets thus requires a dedicated instrumentation…

Context. Polarimetric imaging is one of the most effective techniques for high-contrast imaging and characterization of protoplanetary disks, and has the potential to be instrumental in characterizing exoplanets. VLT/SPHERE contains the…

Accurate astrometry and photometry of saturated and coronagraphic point spread functions (PSFs) are fundamental to both ground- and space-based high contrast imaging projects. For ground-based adaptive optics imaging, differential…

Recent quasar spectroscopy from the VLT and Keck telescopes suggests that fundamental constants may not actually be constant. To better confirm or refute this result, systematic errors between telescopes must be minimized. We present a new…

Coronagraphs allow for faint off-axis exoplanets to be observed, but are limited to angular separations greater than a few beam widths. Accessing closer-in separations would greatly increase the expected number of detectable planets, which…

The detection of molecular species in the atmospheres of earth-like exoplanets orbiting nearby stars requires an optical system that suppresses starlight and maximizes the sensitivity to the weak planet signals at small angular separations.…

We present a novel machine-learning approach for detecting faint point sources in high-contrast adaptive optics imaging datasets. The most widely used algorithms for primary subtraction aim to decouple bright stellar speckle noise from…

We propose a transmission-filter coronagraph for direct imaging of Jupiter-like exoplanets with ground-based telescopes. The coronagraph is based on a transmission filter that consists of finite number of transmission steps. A discrete…

Exoplanet detection and characterization through extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) is a key science goal of future extremely large telescopes. This achievement, however, will be limited in sensitivity by both quasi-static wavefront errors and…

Vortex fiber nulling (VFN) is a method that may enable the detection and characterization of exoplanets at small angular separations (0.5-2 $\lambda/D$) with ground- and space-based telescopes. Since the field of view is within the inner…

High contrast imaging is the primary path to the direct detection and characterization of Earth-like planets around solar-type stars; a cleverly designed internal coronagraph suppresses the light from the star, revealing the elusive…

RISTRETTO is the evolution of the original idea of coupling the VLT instruments SPHERE and ESPRESSO, aiming at High Dispersion Coronagraphy. RISTRETTO is a visitor instrument that should enable the characterization of the atmospheres of…

High-contrast imaging and spectroscopy provide unique constraints for exoplanet formation models as well as for planetary atmosphere models. Instrumentation techniques in this field have greatly improved over the last two decades, with the…

SPHERE, operating at the VLT since 2014, is currently one of the high-contrast instruments with a higher performance. Its adaptive optics system, known as SAXO, will be upgraded to SAXO+, which features the addition of a second stage of…

Future missions like Roman, HabEx, and LUVOIR will directly image exoplanets in reflected light. While current near infrared direct imaging searches are only sensitive to young, self-luminous planets whose brightness is independent of their…

Spectral differential imaging (SDI) is part of the observing strategy of current and on-going high-contrast imaging instruments on ground-based telescopes. Although it improves the star light rejection, SDI attenuates the signature of…

A multitude of coronagraphic techniques for the space-based direct detection and characterization of exo-solar terrestrial planets are actively being pursued by the astronomical community. Typical coronagraphs have internal shaped focal…

The Optimal Optical CoronagraphWorkshop at the Lorentz Center in September 2017 in Leiden, the Netherlands gathered a diverse group of 25 researchers working on exoplanet instrumentation to stimulate the emergence and sharing of new ideas.…

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…