In the 1980s, excess infrared emission was discovered around main-sequence stars; subsequent direct-imaging observations revealed orbiting disks of cold dust to be the source. These 'debris disks' were thought to be by-products of planet formation because they often exhibited morphological and brightness asymmetries that may result from gravitational perturbation by planets. This was proved to be true for the β Pictoris system, in which the known planet generates an observable warp in the disk.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe direct imaging of planets around nearby stars is exceedingly difficult. Only about 14 exoplanets have been imaged to date that have masses less than 13 times that of Jupiter. The next generation of planet-finding coronagraphs, including VLT-SPHERE, the Gemini Planet Imager, Palomar P1640, and Subaru HiCIAO have predicted contrast performance of roughly a thousand times less than would be needed to detect Earth-like planets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHere, we show that the approximately 10-million-year-old beta Pictoris system hosts a massive giant planet, beta Pictoris b, located 8 to 15 astronomical units from the star. This result confirms that gas giant planets form rapidly within disks and validates the use of disk structures as fingerprints of embedded planets. Among the few planets already imaged, beta Pictoris b is the closest to its parent star.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe propose a new concept of pupil motion sensor for astronomical adaptive optics systems and present experimental results obtained during the first laboratory validation of this concept. Pupil motion is an important issue in the case of extreme adaptive optics, high contrast systems, such as the proposed Planet Finder instruments for the ESO and Gemini 8-meter telescopes. Such high contrast imaging instruments will definitively require pupil stabilization to minimize the effect of quasi-static aberrations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe detection of extrasolar planets implies an extremely high-contrast, long-exposure imaging capability at near infrared and probably visible wavelengths. We present here the core of any Planet Finder instrument, that is, the extreme adaptive optics (XAO) subsystem. The level of AO correction directly impacts the exposure time required for planet detection.
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