Abstract Details
| Name: Garima Singh Affiliation: Jet Propulsion Laboratory Conference ID: ASI2017_1270 Title : Direct imaging of Exoplanets at small inner working angle Authors and Co-Authors : Olivier Guyon (1), Eugene Serabyn (2), Nemanja Jovanovic (1) and Julien Lozi (1) (1) National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Subaru Telescope, 650 N AOhoku Place, Hilo 96750, Hawaii. (2) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, MS 169-530, Pasadena-91109, California Abstract Type : Poster Abstract Category : Instrumentation and Techniques Abstract : The direct detection of young and warm extrasolar giant planets in the habitable zone of nearby cool stars is one of the major goals of current ground-based high contrast imaging (HCI) instruments. The quest is to search for rocky exoplanets that holds the evidence for biosignatures. To characterize such exoplanets by spectroscopy of their atmospheres requires their direct imaging which is challenged by the ability to resolve planet signal above bright stellar background. Coronagraph suppresses the diffraction effects of the telescope by blocking the starlight but residual wavefront error scatters starlight over the science region of interest loosing faint planet photons in stellar noise. Therefore, the optimized coronagraphic observation at small angle require focus on three major areas: 1) optimal and predictive control of the low- and high-order aberrations, 2) speckle suppression and its interaction with the wavefront control and 3) the real-time point spread function calibration at the inner working angle using the wavefront sensor telemetry. In this talk, I will first give an overview of direct imaging techniques, current ground-based instruments and their capabilities. Then, I will introduce my PhD research, which focused on estimating low-order wave front aberrations at the inner working angle of a coronagraph and will present how my work has benefitted the HCI community. I will discuss one of the advanced HCI instrument known as the Subaru coronagraphic extreme adaptive optics (SCExAO) system at the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii where I conducted my research. As a closing remark, I will give a brief account of my experience of working at the world-class Mauna Kea Observatory to initiate and discuss direct imaging interests in the Indian scientific community. |