Optimized Principal Component Analysis on Coronagraphic Images of the Fomalhaut System

Abstract

We present the results of a study to optimize the principal component analysis (PCA) algorithm for planet detection, a new algorithm complementing ADI and LOCI for increasing the contrast achievable next to a bright star. The stellar PSF is constructed by removing linear combinations of principal components, allowing the flux from an extrasolar planet to shine through. The number of principal components used determines how well the stellar PSF is globally modelled. Using more principal components may decrease the number of speckles in the final image, but also increases the background noise. We apply PCA to Fomalhaut VLT NaCo images acquired at 4.05 micron with an apodized phase plate. We do not detect any companions, with a model dependent upper mass limit of 13-18 M_Jup from 4-10 AU. PCA achieves greater sensitivity than the LOCI algorithm for the Fomalhaut coronagraphic data by up to 1 magnitude. We make several adaptations to the PCA code and determine which of these prove the most effective at maximizing the signal-to-noise from a planet very close to its parent star. We demonstrate that optimizing the number of principal components used in PCA proves most effective for pulling out a planet signal.

Accepted for publication in ApJ, 7 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Direct Imaging of Multiple Planets Orbiting the Star HR 8799
• Optical Images of an Exosolar Planet 25 Light Years from Earth
• The Gemini Deep Planet Survey -- GDPS
• Direct Imaging and Spectroscopy of a Planetary Mass Candidate Companion to a Young Solar Analog
• Speckle Suppression Through Dual Imaging Polarimetry, and a Ground-Based Image of the HR 4796A Circumstellar Disk
• First On-Sky High Contrast Imaging with an Apodizing Phase Plate
• Deep L' and M-band Imaging for Planets Around Vega and epsilon Eridani

Cited by in corpus (30)

• Imaging Extrasolar Giant Planets
• Combining high-dispersion spectroscopy (HDS) with high contrast imaging (HCI): Probing rocky planets around our nearest neighbors
• VIP: Vortex Image Processing package for high-contrast direct imaging
• An Excess of Jupiter Analogs in Super-Earth Systems
• Magellan Adaptive Optics Imaging of PDS 70: Measuring the Mass Accretion Rate of a Young Giant Planet within a Gapped Disk
• HD 106906 b: A planetary-mass companion outside a massive debris disk
• Performance of the VLT Planet Finder SPHERE II. Data analysis and Results for IFS in laboratory
• MIRACLES: atmospheric characterization of directly imaged planets and substellar companions at 4-5 $\mu$m. I. Photometric analysis of $\beta$ Pic b, HIP 65426 b, PZ Tel B and HD 206893 B
• Astrometric Monitoring of the HR 8799 Planets: Orbit Constraints from Self-Consistent Measurements
• VLT/SPHERE robust astrometry of the HR8799 planets at milliarcsecond-level accuracy Orbital architecture analysis with PyAstrOFit
• Does the Debris Disk around HD 32297 Contain Cometary Grains?
• Performance characterization of a broadband vector Apodizing Phase Plate coronagraph
• On-sky performance analysis of the vector Apodizing Phase Plate coronagraph on MagAO/Clio2
• On the Morphology and Chemical Composition of the HR 4796A Debris Disk
• Accreting protoplanets: Spectral signatures and magnitude of gas and dust extinction at H alpha
• Direct Exoplanet Detection with Binary Differential Imaging
• Searching for Planets in Holey Debris Disks with the Apodizing Phase Plate
• Precise radial velocities of giant stars IX. HD 59686 Ab: a massive circumstellar planet orbiting a giant star in a ~13.6 au eccentric binary system
• Discovery of a Low-Mass Companion to the F7V star HD 984
• Searching for gas giant planets on Solar System scales - A NACO/APP L'-band survey of A- and F-type Main Sequence stars
• Combining angular differential imaging and accurate polarimetry with SPHERE/IRDIS to characterize young giant exoplanets
• The Giant Accreting Protoplanet Survey (GAPlanetS): Optimization Techniques for Robust Detections of Protoplanets
• High-contrast observations of brown dwarf companion HR 2562 B with the vector Apodizing Phase Plate coronagraph
• Improved Contrast in Images of Exoplanets using Direct SNR Optimization
• High-resolution survey for planetary companions to young stars in the Taurus Molecular Cloud
• Spectral and angular differential imaging with SPHERE/IFS. Assessing the performance of various PCA-based approaches to PSF subtraction
• Use the 4S (Signal-Safe Speckle Subtraction): Explainable Machine Learning reveals the Giant Exoplanet AF Lep b in High-Contrast Imaging Data from 2011
• A deep search for planets in the inner 15 au around Vega
• PeX 1. Multi-spectral expansion of residual speckles for planet detection
• Robust Data Interpretation for Perturbed Nulling Interferometers via Proper Handling of Correlated Errors