Related papers: Stellar Coronagraphy
The physical bases of the detection and characterisation of extrasolar planets in the reflected light and thermal emission regimes are reviewed. They both have their advantages and disadvantages, including artefacts, in the determination of…
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…
We briefly review the various proposed scenarios that may lead to nonthermal radio emissions from exoplanetary systems (planetary magnetospheres, magnetosphere-ionosphere and magnetosphere-satellite coupling, and star-planet interactions),…
Hypothetical influences of variability of light velocity due to the parameters of the source of radiation, for the results of spectral measurements of stars to search for exoplanets are considered. Accounting accelerations of stars relative…
Gravitational microlensing provides a unique window on the properties and prevalence of extrasolar planetary systems because of its ability to find low-mass planets at separations of a few AU. The early evidence from microlensing indicates…
Nulling interferometry is a promising technique for direct detection of exoplanets. However, the performance of current devices is limited by different perturbations sources and especially by its sensitivity to any phase aberrations. The…
A space telescope capable of high-contrast imaging has been recognized as the avenue toward finding terrestrial planets around nearby Sun-like stars and characterizing their potential habitability. It is thus essential to quantify the…
High contrast imaging can find and characterize gas giant planets around nearby young stars and the closest M stars, complementing radial velocity and astrometric searches by exploring orbital separations inaccessible to indirect methods.…
Using an optical vortex coronagraph and simple adaptive optics techniques we have made the first convincing demonstration of an optical vortex coronagraph that is coupled to a star gazing telescope. In particular we suppressed by 97% the…
We present a means of characterizing and removing internal reflections between the CCD and other optical surfaces in an astronomical camera. The stellar reflections appear as out-of-focus images and are not necessarily axisymmetric about…
We propose to search for biosignatures in the spectra of reflected light from about 100 Earth-sized planets that are already known to be orbiting in their habitable zones (HZ). For a sample of G and K type hosts, most of these planets will…
The disciplines of asteroseismology and extrasolar planet science overlap methodically in the branch of high-precision photometric time series observations. Light curves are, amongst others, useful to measure intrinsic stellar variability…
Extra-solar planets can be efficiently detected in gravitational microlensing events of high magnification. High accuracy photometry is required over a short, well-defined time interval only, of order 10-30 hours. Most planets orbiting the…
Direct imaging of exoplanets requires very high contrast levels, which are obtained using coronagraphs. But residual quasi-static aberrations create speckles in the focal plane downstream of the coronagraph which mask the planet. This…
The unparalleled theoretical performance of an ideal vector vortex coronagraph makes it one of the most promising technologies for directly imaging exoplanets with a future, off-axis space telescope. However, the image contrast required for…
Vortex Fiber Nulling (VFN) is an interferometric method for suppressing starlight to detect and spectroscopically characterize exoplanets. It relies on a vortex phase mask and single-mode fiber to reject starlight while simultaneously…
This is a scientific strategy for the detection and characterization of extrasolar planets; that is, planets orbiting other stars. As such, it maps out over a 15-year horizon the techniques and capabilities required to detect and measure…
Although there is abundant and diverse observational evidence in support of white dwarf stars hosting planets or debris disks which form in the catastrophic destruction of various planetary bodies, the key processes that explain these…
Over the past two decades, thousands of confirmed exoplanets have been detected. The next major challenge is to characterize these other worlds and their stellar systems. Much information on the composition and formation of exoplanets and…
The vortex coronagraph is an optical instrument that precisely removes on-axis starlight allowing for high contrast imaging at small angular separation from the star, thereby providing a crucial capability for direct detection and…