Recovering simulated planet and disk signals using SCALES aperture masking

Abstract

The Slicer Combined with Array of Lenslets for Exoplanet Spectroscopy (SCALES) instrument is a lenslet-based integral field spectrograph that will operate at 2 to 5 microns, imaging and characterizing colder (and thus older) planets than current high-contrast instruments. Its spatial resolution for distant science targets and/or close-in disks and companions could be improved via interferometric techniques such as sparse aperture masking. We introduce a nascent Python package, NRM-artist, that we use to design several SCALES masks to be non-redundant and to have uniform coverage in Fourier space. We generate high-fidelity mock SCALES data using the scalessim package for SCALES' low spectral resolution modes across its 2 to 5 micron bandpass. We include realistic noise from astrophysical and instrument sources, including Keck adaptive optics and Poisson noise. We inject planet and disk signals into the mock datasets and subsequently recover them to test the performance of SCALES sparse aperture masking and to determine the sensitivity of various mask designs to different science signals.

References in corpus (17)

• A new extensive library of PHOENIX stellar atmospheres and synthetic spectra
• Direct Imaging of Multiple Planets Orbiting the Star HR 8799
• The Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP): I. Motivation, Sample, Calibration, and Overview
• Discovery and spectroscopy of the young Jovian planet 51 Eri b with the Gemini Planet Imager
• The Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey: Giant Planet and Brown Dwarf Demographics From 10-100 AU
• Two accreting protoplanets around the young star PDS 70
• Dynamic temperature selection for parallel-tempering in Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations
• High Performance Lyot and PIAA Coronagraphy for Arbitrarily shaped Telescope Apertures
• Phase Errors in Diffraction-Limited Imaging: Contrast Limits for Sparse Aperture Masking
• The LEECH Exoplanet Imaging Survey: Limits on Planet Occurrence Rates Under Conservative Assumptions
• The SPHERE infrared survey for exoplanets (SHINE) -- II. Observations, Data reduction and analysis Detection performances and early-results
• First Scattered-Light Image of the Debris Disk around HD 131835 with the Gemini Planet Imager
• Comparing Non-Redundant Masking and Filled-Aperture Kernel Phase for Exoplanet Detection and Characterization
• Systematic Multi-Epoch Monitoring of LkCa 15: Dynamic Dust Structures on Solar-System Scales
• Data Reduction and Image Reconstruction Techniques for Non-Redundant Masking
• Spectrally dispersed kernel phase interferometry with SCExAO/CHARIS: proof of concept and calibration strategies
• End-to-end Simulation of the SCALES Integral Field Spectrograph