Related papers: The Extra-Solar Planet Imager (ESPI)
High Definition Astrometry (0.1 - 1.0 micro-arcseconds) will open a new window into neighboring planetary systems. For the first time, the realm of temperate terrestrial worlds will be explored. This includes Earth Analogs, thereby allowing…
We propose a method for observing transiting exoplanets with near-infrared high-resolution spectrometers. We aim to create a robust data analysis method for recovering atmospheric transmission spectra from transiting exoplanets over a wide…
The growing rate of increase in the number of the discovered extra-solar planets which has consequently raised the enthusiasm to explore the universe in hope of finding earth-like planets has resulted in the wide use of Gravitational…
Current time-domain wide-field sky surveys generally operate with few-degree-sized fields and take many individual images to cover large sky areas each night. We present the design and project status of the Evryscope ("wide-seer"), which…
In this work, we investigate the properties of young giant planet spectra in the optical and suggest that future space-based direct imaging missions should be considering young planets as a valuable and informative science case. While young…
For exoplanet direct detection mission concepts such as Terrestrial Planet Finder or Exoplanet Probe, light from the exozodiacal dust tends to obscure any exoplanets present in the image. Data analysis methods to identify point sources…
We investigate directly imaging exoplanets around eclipsing binaries, using the eclipse as a natural tool for dimming the binary and thus increasing the planet to star brightness contrast. At eclipse, the binary becomes point-like, making…
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…
We propose a direct imaging method for the detection of exoplanets based on a combined low-rank plus structured sparse model. For this task, we develop a dictionary of possible effective circular trajectories a planet can take during the…
The SPace Infrared telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA) is a proposed mid-to-far infrared (4-200 um) astronomy mission, scheduled for launch in 2017. A single, 3.5m aperture telescope would provide superior image quality at…
An international group of scientists has begun planning for the Planet Formation Imager (PFI, www.planetformationimager.org), a next-generation infrared interferometer array with the primary goal of imaging the active phases of planet…
(Abridged) We discuss the design considerations of the EXPLORE (EXtra-solar PLanet Occultation REsearch) project, a series of transiting planet searches using 4-m-class telescopes to continuously monitor a single field of stars in the…
The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is a dedicated facility for directly imaging and spectroscopically characterizing extrasolar planets. It combines a very high-order adaptive optics system, a diffraction-suppressing coronagraph, and an…
Several mission concepts are being studied to directly image planets around nearby stars. It is commonly thought that directly imaging a potentially habitable exoplanet around a Sun-like star requires space telescopes with apertures of at…
Searching for nearby exoplanets with direct imaging is one of the major scientific drivers for both space and ground-based programs. While the second generation of dedicated high-contrast instruments on 8-m class telescopes is about to…
An Earth-like extra-solar planet emits light which is many orders of magnitude fainter than that of the parent star. We propose a method of identifying bio-signature spectral lines in light from known extra-solar planets based on Fourier…
We propose a new parametrization of the impact parameter u0 and impact angle {\alpha} for microlensing systems composed by an Earth-like Exoplanet around a Solar mass Star at 1 AU. We present the caustic topology of such system, as well as…
Recent and upcoming stabilized spectrographs are pushing the frontier for Doppler spectroscopy to detect and characterize low-mass planets. Specifications for these instruments are so impressive that intrinsic stellar variability is…
The idea of searching for optical signals from extraterrestrial civilizations has become increasingly popular over the last five years, with dedicated projects at a number of observatories. The method relies on the detection of a brief (few…
Asteroseismology of solar-type stars has an important part to play in the exoplanet program of the NASA Kepler Mission. Precise and accurate inferences on the stellar properties that are made possible by the seismic data allow very tight…