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| Paper: |
High-Contrast Imaging:
A Wider View on Extrasolar Planetary Systems |
| Volume: |
450, Molecules in the Atmospheres of Extrasolar Planets |
| Page: |
199 |
| Authors: |
Bonavita, M.; Claudi, R. U.; Tinetti, G.; Beuzit, J.; Chauvin, G.; Desidera, S.; Gratton, R.; Kasper, M. |
| Abstract: |
Although very successful (more than 350 planets discovered up to now) indirect methods for extrasolar planet detection (radial velocity, transits) are sensitive to planets quite close to their hosts.
Moreover, accurate studies of planet characteristics are feasible only for a subset of object which are strongly irradiated.
Standing at this point, any information about the exoplanets in wide orbits (more than 5-10 AU) is missing.
High contrast imaging could be the key to open us a door to an unexplored region of star planet separation and to shed light on these unknown far away worlds.
But it's not just a matter of detections. In fact coupling integral field spectrographs to extreme adaptive optic modules at the focus of 8m class telescopes (SPHERE for VLT and GPI for South Gemini), and in the future to ELTs (EPICS), would allow us to perform a first order characterization of the exoplanets themselves.
Here we present the potential of the high contrast imaging technique, comparing it's capabilities with the ones of the indirect methods. |
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