Direct detection of extrasolar planets and the Gemini Planet
Imager
Bruce Macintosh, LLNL
Abstract:
The next frontier in the study of extrasolar planets is direct (imaging)
detection of the planets themselves. With high-order adaptive optics,
careful system design, and advanced coronagraphy, it is possible for an
AO system on a 8-m telescope to achieve contrast levels better than
10^7, sufficient to detect warm self-luminous Jovian planets around
stars as old as 1 Gyr. Such direct detection is sensitive to planets
inaccessible to current radial-velocity surveys and allows spectral
characterization of the planets, shedding light on planet formation and
the struture of other solar systems. Our team has begun the construction
of such a system for the Gemini Observatory. Dubbed the Gemini Planet
Imager (GPI), this instrument will be deployed in early 2011 on the
Gemini South telescope. It combines a 2000-actuator MEMS-based AO
system, an apodized-pupil Lyot coronagraph, a precision infrared
interferometer for calibration at the nanometer level, and a infrared
integral field unit/polarimeter for detection and characterization of
the target planets and circumstellar dust disks. I will present an
overview of the science motivation for GPI, the instrument design and
technological challenges, and predictions of the final science
capability. Finally, I will briefly discuss the science possibilities
for direct planet detection on the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope.