SPHERE: A planet finder instrument for the VLT

Abstract

The Planet Finder instrument for ESO's VLT telescope, scheduled for first light in 2010, aims to detect giant extra-solar planets in the vicinity of bright stars and to characterise the objects found through spectroscopic and polarimetric observations. The observations will be done both within the Y, J, H and Ks atmospheric windows (~0.95 -2.32µm) by the aid of a dual imaging camera (IRDIS) and an integral field spectrograph (IFS), and in the visible using a fastmodulation polarization camera (ZIMPOL). The instrument employs an extreme-AO turbulence compensation system, focal plane tip-tilt correction, and interferential coronagraphs. We describe briefly the science goals of the instrument and deduce the top-level requirements. The system architecture is presented, including brief descriptions of each of the main sub-systems. Expected performance is described in terms of end-to-end simulations, and a semi-analytic performance-estimation tool for system-level sensitivity analysis is presented.

Large binocular telescope interferometer adaptive optics: on-sky performance and lessons learned

“…Improving the SR would not only increase the core flux (increase the peak signal on faint companions), but also decrease the flux in the first Airy ring and beyond (decrease the photon noise and variability at small inner working angles). In order to remain competitive with other extreme-AO systems such as GPI, 18 SPHERE, 19 SCExAO, 20 and P1640, 21 LBTI must implement NCPA correction.…”

DARKNESS: A Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector Integral Field Spectrograph for High-contrast Astronomy

“…Early ground-based surveys doubled as testbeds for high-contrast instrumentation and algorithm development while putting strong constraints on the frequency of giant exoplanets at large separations (∼10s to 100s of AU) from their host stars (see Bowler (2016) for a comprehensive review of these first-generation surveys). More recently, a new class of dedicated near-IR high-contrast instruments have come online, including Project 1640 at Palomar (P1640; Hinkley et al 2011), The Gemini Planet Imager at Gemini South (GPI; Macintosh et al 2006Macintosh et al , 2014, the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch instrument at VLT (SPHERE; Dohlen et al 2006;Zurlo et al 2014), and the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics system at Subaru (SCExAO Jovanovic et al 2015), with the goal of imaging exoplanetary systems at separations below 10 AU. 1 However, these instruments continue to find fewer giant exoplanets than predicted (Macintosh et al 2006), suggesting a possible discrepancy between the planet mass function extrapolated from radial velocity surveys and the true giant exoplanet mass function (Bowler 2016).…”

First performance of the GeMS + GMOS system – 1. Imaging

“…At the present time, compensating enough the atmospheric turbulence in order to reach the diffraction limit in the visible bands still remains a challenging endeavor. This can now be accomplished over a very small field of view (10" maximum) around bright stars with the upcoming generation of Extreme AO system (Macintosh et al 2006;Dohlen et al 2006;Esposito et al 2010;Jovanovic et al 2015;Dekany et al 2006;Close et al 2013). The sky coverage for these instrument is logically extremely small.…”