Publications (38)
Polarized Light Imaging of the HD 142527 Transition Disk with the Gemini Planet Imager: Dust around the Close-in Companion
Timothy J. Rodigas, Katherine B. Follette, Alycia Weinberger +2
When giant planets form, they grow by accreting gas and dust. HD 142527 is a young star that offers a scaled-up view of this process. It has a broad, asymmetric ring of gas and dus…
A Keck LGS AO Search for Brown Dwarf and Planetary Mass Companions to Upper Scorpius Brown Dwarfs
Beth Biller, Katelyn Allers, Michael Liu +2
We searched for binary companions to 20 young brown dwarfs in the Upper Scorpius association (145 pc, 5 Myr, nearest OB association) with the the Laser Guide Star adaptive optics s…
The LEECH Exoplanet Imaging Survey: Characterization of the Coldest Directly Imaged Exoplanet, GJ 504 b, and Evidence for Super-Stellar Metallicity
Andrew J. Skemer, Caroline V. Morley, Neil T. Zimmerman +39
As gas giant planets and brown dwarfs radiate away the residual heat from their formation, they cool through a spectral type transition from L to T, which encompasses the dissipati…
Improved age constraints for the AB Dor quadruple system - The binary nature of AB Dor B
Markus Janson, Wolfgang Brandner, Rainer Lenzen +5
We present resolved NACO photometry of the close binary AB Dor B in H- and Ks-band. AB Dor B is itself known to be a wide binary companion to AB Dor A, which in turn has a very low…
A Multi-wavelength Differential Imaging Experiment for the High Contrast Imaging Testbed
Beth Biller, John Trauger, Dwight Moody +5
We discuss the results of a multi-wavelength differential imaging lab experiment with the High Contrast Imaging Testbed (HCIT) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The HCIT combines a…
LEECH: A 100 Night Exoplanet Imaging Survey at the LBT
Andrew Skemer, Daniel Apai, Vanessa Bailey +29
In February 2013, the LEECH (LBTI Exozodi Exoplanet Common Hunt) survey began its 100-night campaign from the Large Binocular Telescope atop Mount Graham in Arizona. LEECH nearly c…
First Light LBT AO Images of HR 8799 bcde at 1.65 and 3.3 Microns: New Discrepancies between Young Planets and Old Brown Dwarfs
Andrew J. Skemer, Philip M. Hinz, Simone Esposito +45
As the only directly imaged multiple planet system, HR 8799 provides a unique opportunity to study the physical properties of several planets in parallel. In this paper, we image a…
Imaging Giant Protoplanets with the ELTs
Steph Sallum, Vanessa P. Bailey, Rebecca A. Bernstein +27
We have now accumulated a wealth of observations of the planet-formation environment and of mature planetary systems. These data allow us to test and refine theories of gas-giant p…
High contrast imaging at the LBT: the LEECH exoplanet imaging survey
Andrew J. Skemer, Philip Hinz, Simone Esposito +34
In Spring 2013, the LEECH (LBTI Exozodi Exoplanet Common Hunt) survey began its 130-night campaign from the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) atop Mt Graham, Arizona. This surv…
New Frontiers for Terrestrial-sized to Neptune-sized Exoplanets In the Era of Extremely Large Telescopes
Ji Wang, Michael R. Meyer, Alan Boss +20
Surveys reveal that terrestrial- to Neptune-sized planets (1 4 R) are the most common type of planets in our galaxy. Detecting and characterizing such small…
NACO-SDI direct imaging search for the exoplanet Eps Eri b
Markus Janson, Wolfgang Brandner, Thomas Henning +13
The active K2V star Eri hosts the most nearby known extrasolar planet. With an angular separation of about 1" on average, and an age of a few to several hundred Myrs, Eri…
The Orbit of the Companion to HD 100453A: Binary-Driven Spiral Arms in a Protoplanetary Disk
Kevin Wagner, Ruobing Dong, Patrick Sheehan +9
HD 100453AB is a 10+/-2 Myr old binary whose protoplanetary disk was recently revealed to host a global two-armed spiral structure. Given the relatively small projected separation…
Astro2020 Science White Paper: Dynamical Processes in the Planet-Forming Environment
Peregrine McGehee, Alan Boss, Laird Close +3
The transfer of circumstellar disk mass and momentum onto the protostar and out into the environment occurs via a variety of mechanisms including magnetospheric accretion, jets, ou…
The Gray Needle: Large Grains in the HD 15115 Debris Disk from LBT/PISCES/Ks and LBTI/LMIRcam/L' Adaptive Optics Imaging
Timothy J. Rodigas, Philip M. Hinz, Jarron Leisenring +52
We present diffraction-limited \ks band and \lprime adaptive optics images of the edge-on debris disk around the nearby F2 star HD 15115, obtained with a single 8.4 m primary mirro…
A Direct Measurement of Atmospheric Dispersion in N-band Spectra: Implications for Mid-IR Systems on ELTs
Andrew Skemer, Philip Hinz, William Hoffmann +7
Adaptive optics will almost completely remove the effects of atmospheric turbulence at 10 microns on the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) generation of telescopes. In this paper, we…
MagAO-X Phase II Upgrades: Implementation and First On-Sky Results of a New Post-AO 1000 Actuator Deformable Mirror
Jay K. Kueny, Kyle Van Gorkom, Maggie Kautz +13
MagAO-X is the extreme coronagraphic adaptive optics (AO) instrument for the 6.5-meter Magellan Clay telescope and is currently undergoing a comprehensive batch of upgrades. One in…
ISM Dust Grains and N-band Spectral Variability in the Spatially Resolved Subarcsecond Binary UY Aur
Andrew Skemer, Laird Close, Philip Hinz +4
The 10 micron silicate feature is an essential diagnostic of dust-grain growth and planet formation in young circumstellar disks. The Spitzer Space Telescope has revolutionized the…
Making the unmodulated Pyramid wavefront sensor smart. Closed-loop demonstration of neural network wavefront reconstruction with MagAO-X
Rico Landman, Sebastiaan Haffert, Jared Males +12
Almost all current and future high-contrast imaging instruments will use a Pyramid wavefront sensor (PWFS) as a primary or secondary wavefront sensor. The main issue with the PWFS…
Evidence for Misaligned Disks in the T Tauri Triple System: 10 um Super-Resolution with MMTAO and Markov Chains
Andrew Skemer, Laird Close, Philip Hinz +3
Although T Tauri is one of the most studied young objects in astronomy, the nature of its circumstellar environment remains elusive due, in part, to the small angular separation of…
The Need for Laboratory Measurements and Ab Initio Studies to Aid Understanding of Exoplanetary Atmospheres
Jonathan J. Fortney, Tyler D. Robinson, Shawn Domagal-Goldman +85
We are now on a clear trajectory for improvements in exoplanet observations that will revolutionize our ability to characterize their atmospheric structure, composition, and circul…
Mapping H-band Scattered Light Emission in the Mysterious SR21 Transitional Disk
Katherine B. Follette, Motohide Tamura, Jun Hashimoto +50
We present the first near infrared (NIR) spatially resolved images of the circumstellar transitional disk around SR21. These images were obtained with the Subaru HiCIAO camera, ada…
Modeling coronagraphic extreme wavefront control systems for high contrast imaging in ground and space telescope missions
Jennifer Lumbres, Jared Males, Ewan Douglas +17
The challenges of high contrast imaging (HCI) for detecting exoplanets for both ground and space applications can be met with extreme adaptive optics (ExAO), a high-order adaptive…
Performance of the Near-infrared coronagraphic imager on Gemini-South
Mark Chun, Doug Toomey, Zahed Wahhaj +8
We present the coronagraphic and adaptive optics performance of the Gemini-South Near-Infrared Coronagraphic Imager (NICI). NICI includes a dual-channel imager for simultaneous spe…
Not Alone: Tracing the Origins of Very Low Mass Stars and Brown Dwarfs Through Multiplicity Studies
Adam J. Burgasser, I. Neill Reid, Nick Siegler +4
The properties of multiple stellar systems have long provided important empirical constraints for star formation theories, enabling (along with several other lines of evidence) a c…
L-band Spectroscopy with Magellan-AO/Clio2: First Results on Young Low-Mass Companions
Jordan M. Stone, Josh Eisner, Andy Skemer +6
L-band spectroscopy is a powerful probe of cool low-gravity atmospheres: The P, Q, and R branch fundamental transitions of methane near 3.3 m provide a sensitive probe of carbo…
On the Morphology and Chemical Composition of the HR 4796A Debris Disk
Timothy J. Rodigas, Christopher C. Stark, Alycia Weinberger +17
[abridged] We present resolved images of the HR 4796A debris disk using the Magellan adaptive optics system paired with Clio-2 and VisAO. We detect the disk at 0.77 \microns, 0.91…
Direct spectroscopic confirmation of the young embedded proto-planet WISPIT 2c
Chloe Lawlor, Richelle F. van Capelleveen, Guillaume Bourdarot +18
WISPIT 2 is a nearby young star with a multi-ringed disk which was recently confirmed to host a ~4.9 MJup gas giant planet embedded in a large (60 au) gap at a radial separation of…
New Spatially Resolved Imaging of the SR 21 Transition Disk and Constraints on the Small-Grain Disk Geometry
Steph Sallum, Andy Skemer, Josh Eisner +9
We present new 0.6 - 4 m imaging of the SR 21 transition disk from Keck/NIRC2 and Magellan/MagAO. The protoplanetary disk around SR 21 has a large (~ 30 - 40 AU) clearing first…
The Demographics and Atmospheres of Giant Planets with the ELTs
Brendan Bowler, Steph Sallum, Alan Boss +23
Gas giants are the most readily detectable exoplanets but fundamental questions about their system architectures, formation, migration, and atmospheres have been unanswerable with…
Protoplanetary Disk Science Enabled by Extremely Large Telescopes
Hannah Jang-Condell, Sean Brittain, Alycia Weinberger +36
The processes that transform gas and dust in circumstellar disks into diverse exoplanets remain poorly understood. One key pathway is to study exoplanets as they form in their youn…
Imaging low-mass planets within the habitable zones of nearby stars with ground-based mid-infrared imaging
Kevin Wagner, Steve Ertel, Jordan Stone +8
Giant exoplanets on 10-100 au orbits have been directly imaged around young stars. The peak of the thermal emission from these warm young planets is in the near-infrared (~1-5 micr…
The First Direct Distance and Luminosity Determination for a Self-Luminous Giant Exoplanet: The Trigonometric Parallax to 2MASS1207334-393254Ab
Beth Biller, Laird Close
We present the first trigonometric parallax and distance for a young planetary mass object. A likely TW Hya cluster member, 2MASSW J1207334-393254Ab (hereafter 2M1207Ab) is an M8 b…
The TWA 3 Young Triple System: Orbits, Disks, Evolution
Kendra Kellogg, L. Prato, Guillermo Torres +14
We have characterized the spectroscopic orbit of the TWA 3A binary and provide preliminary families of probable solutions for the TWA 3A visual orbit as well as for the wide TWA 3A…
Upgrading LBTI/NOMIC with a quadruple annular groove phase mask and GeoSnap detector for imaging nearby, habitable-zone exoplanets
Kevin Wagner, Manny Montoya, Steve Ertel +32
The paper describes two upgrades to the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer’s NOMIC camera—a quadruple annular groove phase mask coronagraph and a new Teledyne GeoSnap detecto…
Detecting Earth-like Biosignatures on Rocky Exoplanets around Nearby Stars with Ground-based Extremely Large Telescopes
Mercedes López-Morales, Thayne Currie, Johanna Teske +21
As we begin to discover rocky planets in the habitable zone of nearby stars with missions like TESS and CHEOPS, we will need quick advancements on instrumentation and observational…
Monitoring H Emission from the Wide-orbit Brown-dwarf Companion FU Tau B
Ya-Lin Wu, Yu-Chi Cheng, Li-Ching Huang +5
Monitoring mass accretion onto substellar objects provides insights into the geometry of the accretion flows. We use the Lulin One-meter Telescope to monitor H emission from FU…
SHARK-NIR, the coronagraphic camera for LBT, moving toward construction
Jacopo Farinato, Francesca Bacciotti, Carlo Baffa +37
SHARK-NIR is one of the two coronagraphic instruments proposed for the Large Binocular Telescope. Together with SHARK-VIS (performing coronagraphic imaging in the visible domain),…
Direct Imaging in Reflected Light: Characterization of Older, Temperate Exoplanets With 30-m Telescopes
Etienne Artigau, Rebecca A. Bernstein, Timothy Brandt +22
Direct detection, also known as direct imaging, is a method for discovering and characterizing the atmospheres of planets at intermediate and wide separations. It is the only means…