Abstract Details
| Name: Sujan Sengupta Affiliation: Indian Institute of Astrophysics Conference ID: ASI2017_436 Title : EXO-MOONS Authors and Co-Authors : Sujan Sengupta, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore Abstract Type : Poster Abstract Category : Stars,ISM and the Galaxy Abstract : Formation of lExo-moons are believed to be natural consequence of planet formation as most of the outer solar-planets have a large number of natural satellites with a large variety of size. Although a large number of exoplanets are discovered, no exomoon has yet been discovered. A few methods, i.g., barycentric and photocentric Transit Timing Variation (TTV), Transit Duration Variation (xomoons around the directly imaged exoplanets.TDV), etc. have been used but owing to extremely small signa, these methods failed to detect any exomoons. We suggest that time resolved image polarimetry may serve as a potential method to detect exomoons around the directly imaged exoplanets. Adopting detailed atmospheric models for self-luminous exoplanets, we present the polarization profiles of these objects in the infrared during transit phase by an exomoon and estimate the peak amplitude of polarization that occurs during the inner contacts of the transit ingress/egress phase. According to our estimation, an image polarimeter with sensitivity ranging from 0.3 to 0.01 % may detect the presence of exomoon around the self-luminous exoplanets that are directly imaged. Future high-contrast imaging instruments on thirty-meter class telescopes may provide both the time resolution and polarimetric sensitivity to detect such moons. |