Presentation + Paper
27 August 2024 Challenge of direct imaging of exoplanets within structures: disentangling real signal from point source from background light
Jialin Li, Laird M. Close, Jared R. Males, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Alycia Weinberger, Katherine Follette, Kevin Wagner, Daniel Apai, Ya-Lin Wu, Joseph D. Long, Laura Perez, Logan A. Pearce, Jay K. Kueny, Eden A. McEwen, Kyle Van Gorkom, Olivier Guyon, Maggie Y. Kautz, Alexander D. Hedglen, Warren B. Foster, Roz Roberts, Jennifer Lumbres, Lauren Schatz
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
The high contrast and spatial resolution requirements for directly imaging exoplanets requires effective coordination of wavefront control, coronagraphy, observation techniques, and post-processing algorithms. However, even with this suite of tools, identifying and retrieving exoplanet signals embedded in resolved scattered light regions can be extremely challenging due to the increased noise from scattered light off the circumstellar disk and the potential misinterpretation of the true nature of the detected signal. This issue pertains not only to imaging terrestrial planets in habitable zones within zodiacal and exozodiacal emission but also to young planets embedded in circumstellar, transitional, and debris disks. This is particularly true for Hα detection of exoplanets in transitional disks. This work delves into recent Hα observations of three transitional disks systems with MagAO-X, an extreme adaptive optics system for the 6.5-meter Magellan Clay telescope. We employed angular differential imaging (ADI) and simultaneous spectral differential imaging (SSDI) in combination with KLIP, a PCA algorithm in post-processing, for optimal starlight suppression and quasi-static noise removal. We discuss the challenges in protoplanet identification with MagAO-X in environments rich with scattered and reflected light from disk structures and explore a potential solution for removing noise contributions from real astronomical objects with current observation and post-processing techniques.
Conference Presentation
(2024) Published by SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Jialin Li, Laird M. Close, Jared R. Males, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Alycia Weinberger, Katherine Follette, Kevin Wagner, Daniel Apai, Ya-Lin Wu, Joseph D. Long, Laura Perez, Logan A. Pearce, Jay K. Kueny, Eden A. McEwen, Kyle Van Gorkom, Olivier Guyon, Maggie Y. Kautz, Alexander D. Hedglen, Warren B. Foster, Roz Roberts, Jennifer Lumbres, and Lauren Schatz "Challenge of direct imaging of exoplanets within structures: disentangling real signal from point source from background light", Proc. SPIE 13097, Adaptive Optics Systems IX, 1309714 (27 August 2024); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3020333
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KEYWORDS
Planets

Point spread functions

Tunable filters

Cameras

Stars

Exoplanets

Signal detection

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