Book Description
Over the past decade, the study of extrasolar planets through indirect techniques--primarily Doppler measurements--has revolutionized our understanding of other solar systems. The next major step in this field will be the direct detection and characterization, via imaging and spectroscopy, of the planets themselves. To achieve this, we must separate the light from the faint planet from the extensive glare of its parent star. We pursued this goal using the current generation of adaptive optics (AO) systems on large ground-based telescopes, using infrared imaging to search for the thermal emission from young planets and developing image processing techniques to distinguish planets from telescope-induced artifacts. Our new Angular Differential Imaging (ADI) technique, which uses the sidereal rotation of the Earth and telescope, is now standard for ground-based high-contrast imaging. Although no young planets were found in our surveys, we placed the strongest limits yet on giant planets in wide orbits (>30 AU) around young stars and characterized planetary companion candidates. The imaging of planetary companions on solar-system-like scales (5-30 AU) will require a new generation of advanced AO systems that are an order of magnitude more powerful than the LLNL-built Keck AO system. We worked to develop and test the key technologies needed for these systems, including a spatially-filtered wavefront sensor, efficient and accurate wavefront reconstruction algorithms, and precision AO wavefront control at the sub-nm level. LLNL has now been selected by the Gemini Observatory to lead the construction of the Gemini Planet Imager, a $24M instrument that will be the most advanced AO system in the world.
