Description:

Title: Extreme Exoplanet Imaging: New Capabilities and the First Science Results
   from SCExAO and GPI

Speaker: Thayne Currie, Subaru Telescope/NAOJ

Host: Fred Rasio

Abstract: Direct imaging/spectroscopy is the means by which we will eventually identify, confirm, and characterize a true Earth twin around a nearby star. While conventional adaptive optics instrumentation has restricted us to primarily imaging only superjovian-mass planets at wide separations, the new suite of dedicated extreme AO systems coupled with advanced post-processing techniques will soon reveal images and spectra for solar system-mass planets. In just one year of science operation, the new extreme AO system GPI has identified a bona fide Kuiper belt analogue to a young Sun-like star, imaged the first methane-rich and ~Jupiter-mass exoplanet, and now potentially has imaged only the second known multi-planet system.

I will present the first science results from Subaru/SCExAO, Subaru’s cutting edge extreme AO system soon capable of delivering 90+% Strehl in the near IR for moderately bright stars, demonstrating its significant gain in capabilities over conventional systems. In the near-term, SCExAO will be coupled with the CHARIS integral field spectrograph, yielding spectra for young jovian planets down to ~0.1”. In a few years, SCExAO will see an even greater gain in capabilities, working in concert with the MEC (MKIDS) detector, allowing it to image and potentially extract spectra for reflected-light planets 10-100 million times fainter than the host star at these and wider separations. I will describe the special long-term opportunity for SCExAO as a precursor survey vehicle/complementary instrument for WFIRST-AFTA and the case for it as a visitor instrument on the Thirty Meter Telescope.

Keywords: Physics, Astronomy, Astrophysics