High-Contrast Observations in Optical and Infrared Astronomy

Abstract

High-contrast observations in optical and infrared astronomy are defined as any observation requiring a technique to reveal a celestial object of interest that is in such close angular proximity to another source brighter by a factor of at least 10^5 that optical effects hinder or prevent the collection of photons directly from the target of observation. This is a relatively new type of observation that enables research on previously obscured parts of the Universe. In particular, it is most applicable to Comparative Planetary Science, a field that directly attacks such questions as "how common are planetary systems? What types of planets exist, and are there planets other than Earth that are capable of supporting life as we know it?" We survey the scientific motivations for high-contrast observations, provide an overview of the techniques currently being used or developed, and discuss some ideas and studies for future prospects.

In press for Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics (Vol. 47). 46 pages, 15 figures

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Cited by in corpus (55)

• Wide-Field InfrarRed Survey Telescope-Astrophysics Focused Telescope Assets WFIRST-AFTA 2015 Report
• Detection and Characterization of Exoplanets and Disks using Projections on Karhunen-Loeve Eigenimages
• Exoplanet Atmospheres
• Imaging Extrasolar Giant Planets
• Adaptive Optics for Astronomy
• Impact of Space Weather on Climate and Habitability of Terrestrial Type Exoplanets
• Parallactic Motion for Companion Discovery: An M-Dwarf Orbiting Alcor
• Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of the Extrasolar Planet HR 8799 b
• VIP: Vortex Image Processing package for high-contrast direct imaging
• Planets Around Low-Mass Stars (PALMS). IV. The Outer Architecture of M Dwarf Planetary Systems
• The physical properties of extrasolar planets
• The Vector Vortex Coronagraph: Laboratory Results and First Light at Palomar Observatory
• Calibration of quasi-static aberrations in exoplanet direct-imaging instruments with a Zernike phase-mask sensor
• Reconnaissance of the HR 8799 Exosolar System I: Near IR Spectroscopy
• Reconnaissance of the HR 8799 Exosolar System II: Astrometry and Orbital Motion
• The Dynamical Mass and Three-Dimensional Orbit of HR7672B: A Benchmark Brown Dwarf with High Eccentricity
• The Moving Group Targets of the SEEDS High-Contrast Imaging Survey of Exoplanets and Disks: Results and Observations from the First Three Years
• Clouds and Hazes in Exoplanet Atmospheres
• The Vector-APP: a Broadband Apodizing Phase Plate that yields Complementary PSFs
• Substellar-Mass Companions to the K-Giants HD 240237, BD +48 738 and HD 96127
• Observational Constraints on Companions inside of 10 AU in the HR 8799 Planetary System
• Ring-apodized vortex coronagraphs for obscured telescopes. I. Transmissive ring apodizers
• Planet Hunters. VIII. Characterization of 41 Long-Period Exoplanet Candidates from Kepler Archival Data
• PynPoint: a modular pipeline architecture for processing and analysis of high-contrast imaging data
• Searching for faint companions with VLTI/PIONIER. I. Method and first results
• The Kappa Andromedae System: New Constraints on the Companion Mass, System Age & Further Multiplicity
• Direct Imaging Discovery and Dynamical Mass of a Substellar Companion Orbiting an Accelerating Hyades Sun-like Star with SCExAO/CHARIS
• Apodized Pupil Lyot Coronagraphs for Arbitrary Apertures. IV. Reduced Inner Working Angle and Increased Robustness to Low-Order Aberrations
• Speckle Suppression with the Project 1640 Integral Field Spectrograph
• Adaptive Optics for Extremely Large Telescopes
• Estimates of the Planet Yield from Ground-Based High-Contrast Imaging Observations as a Function of Stellar Mass
• A Data Cube Extraction Pipeline for a Coronagraphic Integral Field Spectrograph
• The Direct Detectability of Giant Exoplanets in the Optical
• Discovery and Characterization of a Faint Stellar Companion to the A3V Star Zeta Virginis
• Establishing Alpha Oph as a Prototype Rotator: Improved Astrometric Orbit
• Characterizing the protolunar disk of the accreting companion GQ Lupi B
• Calibration of the island effect: Experimental validation of closed-loop focal plane wavefront control on Subaru/SCExAO
• Astrophotonics: astronomy and modern optics
• On High-Contrast Characterization of Nearby, Short-Period Exoplanets with Giant Segmented-Mirror Telescopes
• Completeness of Imaging Surveys for Eccentric Exoplanets
• Improved achromatization of phase mask coronagraphs using colored apodization
• On the sensitivity of closure phases to faint companions in optical long baseline interferometry
• S4: A Spatial-Spectral model for Speckle Suppression
• Astrometric and Photometric Measurements of Binary Stars with Adaptive Optics: Observations from 2002
• Efficiently Imaging Accreting Protoplanets from Space: Reference Star Differential Imaging of the PDS 70 Planetary System using the HST/WFC3 Archival PSF Library
• High Resolution Infrared Imaging & Spectroscopy of the Z Canis Majoris System During Quiescence & Outburst
• A New Method for Characterizing Very-Low-Mass Companions with Low Resolution Near-Infrared Spectroscopy
• An inner warp discovered in the disk around HD 110058 using VLT/SPHERE and HST/STIS
• Karhunen-Loève Data Imputation in High Contrast Imaging
• Speckle Space-Time Covariance in High-Contrast Imaging
• Companions of Stars: From Other Stars to Brown Dwarfs to Planets: The Discovery of the First Methane Brown Dwarf
• Cascade adaptive optics with a second stage based on a Zernike wavefront sensor for exoplanet observations
• Characterisation of a turbulent module for the MITHIC high-contrast imaging testbed
• Adaptive Optics Observations of Exoplanets, Brown Dwarfs, & Binary Stars
• Charge-Injection Device Imaging of Sirius with Contrast Ratios Greater than 1:26 Million