High contrast imaging at the LBT: the LEECH exoplanet imaging survey

Abstract

In Spring 2013, the LEECH (LBTI Exozodi Exoplanet Common Hunt) survey began its $\sim$130-night campaign from the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) atop Mt Graham, Arizona. This survey benefits from the many technological achievements of the LBT, including two 8.4-meter mirrors on a single fixed mount, dual adaptive secondary mirrors for high Strehl performance, and a cold beam combiner to dramatically reduce the telescope's overall background emissivity. LEECH neatly complements other high-contrast planet imaging efforts by observing stars at L' (3.8 $\mu$m), as opposed to the shorter wavelength near-infrared bands (1-2.4 $\mu$m) of other surveys. This portion of the spectrum offers deep mass sensitivity, especially around nearby adolescent ($\sim$0.1-1 Gyr) stars. LEECH's contrast is competitive with other extreme adaptive optics systems, while providing an alternative survey strategy. Additionally, LEECH is characterizing known exoplanetary systems with observations from 3-5$\mu$m in preparation for JWST.

arXiv comment12 pages, 5 figures. Proceedings of the SPIE, 9148-20

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• Imaging Extrasolar Giant Planets
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• VIP: Vortex Image Processing package for high-contrast direct imaging
• The LEECH Exoplanet Imaging Survey: Limits on Planet Occurrence Rates Under Conservative Assumptions
• The LEECH Exoplanet Imaging Survey: Characterization of the Coldest Directly Imaged Exoplanet, GJ 504 b, and Evidence for Super-Stellar Metallicity
• Nulling Data Reduction and On-Sky Performance of the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer
• The Planetary Accretion Shock: I. Framework for Radiation-hydrodynamical Simulations and First Results
• First-light LBT nulling interferometric observations: warm exozodiacal dust resolved within a few AU of eta Corvi
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• Hunting for planets in the HL Tau disk
• The TRENDS High-Contrast Imaging Survey. VII. Discovery of a Nearby Sirius-like White Dwarf System (HD 169889)
• Chasing the storm: Investigating the application of high-contrast imaging techniques in producing precise exoplanet light curves