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Clouds and other features in exoplanet and brown dwarf atmospheres cause variations in brightness as they rotate in and out of view. Ground-based instruments reach the high contrasts and small inner working angles needed to monitor these…
We advocate for the prioritization of high-precision photometric monitoring of exoplanet and brown dwarf companions to detect brightness variability arising from features in their atmospheres. Measurements of photometric variability provide…
Ground-based high contrast exoplanet imaging requires state-of-the-art adaptive optics (AO) systems in order to detect extremely faint planets next to their brighter host stars. For such extreme AO systems (with high actuator count…
The current direct observations of brown dwarfs and exoplanets have been obtained using instruments not specifically designed for overcoming the large contrast ratio between the host star and any wide-separation faint companions. However,…
More than 450 exoplanets are known and this number increases nearly every day. Only a few constraints on their orbital parameters and physical characteristics can be determined, as most exoplanets are detected indirectly. Measuring the…
Exoplanets which are detected using the radial velocity technique have a well-known ambiguity of their true mass, caused by the unknown inclination of the planetary orbit with respect to the plane of the sky. Constraints on the inclination…
We have undertaken an adaptive optics (AO) imaging survey of extrasolar planetary systems and stars showing interesting radial velocity trends from high precision radial velocity searches. AO increases the resolution and dynamic range of an…
Adaptive optics (AO) have been used to correct wavefronts to achieve diffraction limited point spread functions in a broad range of optical applications, prominently ground-based astronomical telescopes operating in near infra-red. While…
Light curves produced by wide-field exoplanet transit surveys such as CoRoT, Kepler, and TESS are affected by sensor-wide systematic noise which is correlated both spatiotemporally and with other instrumental parameters such as photometric…
Residual speckles in adaptive optics (AO) images represent a well-known limitation on the achievement of the contrast needed for faint source detection. Speckles in AO imagery can be the result of either residual atmospheric aberrations,…
Directly-imaged planetary-mass companions offer unique opportunities in atmospheric studies of exoplanets. They share characteristics of both brown dwarfs and transiting exoplanets, therefore, are critical for connecting atmospheric…
Photometry of short-period planetary systems allows astronomers to monitor exoplanets, their host stars, and their mutual interactions. In addition to the transits of a planet in front of its star and the eclipses of the planet by its star,…
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…
The direct imaging and characterization of exoplanets requires extreme adaptive optics (XAO), achieving exquisite wavefront correction (upwards of 90$\%$ Strehl) over a narrow field of view (a few arcseconds). For these XAO systems the…
As astronomers, we are living an exciting time for what concerns the search for other worlds. Recent discoveries have already deeply impacted our vision of planetary formation and architectures. Future bio-signature discoveries will…
Current and future high contrast imaging instruments aim to detect exoplanets at closer orbital separations, lower masses, and/or older ages than their predecessors. However, continually evolving speckles in the coronagraphic science image…
Today, there exists a wide variety of algorithms dedicated to high-contrast imaging, especially for the detection and characterisation of exoplanet signals. These algorithms are tailored to address the very high contrast between the…
The search for Earth-like exoplanets requires high-contrast and high-angular resolution instruments, which designs can be very complex: they need an adaptive optics system to compensate for the effect of the atmospheric turbulence on image…
So far, most of the about 5700 exoplanets have been discovered mainly with radial velocity and transit methods. These techniques are sensitive to planets in close orbits, not being able to probe large star--planet separations. $\mu$-lensing…
The development of adaptive optics (AO) played a major role in modern astronomy over the last three decades. By compensating for the atmospheric turbulence, these systems enable to reach the diffraction limit on large telescopes. In this…