Finding exoplanets in the habitable zone with light echoes

Mutian Wang; Peter Tuthill; Barnaby Norris

doi:10.1117/12.2559345

13 December 2020 Finding exoplanets in the habitable zone with light echoes

Mutian Wang, Peter Tuthill, Barnaby Norris

Proceedings Volume 11448, Adaptive Optics Systems VII; 114484V (2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2559345
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2020, Online Only

Abstract

In practice, technologies attempting to recover direct images of extra-solar planets run into noise floors governed by systematics (most notably, quasi-static speckles) before reaching fundamental limits (such as photon noise). To enhance detection reach to higher contrasts, discrimination by exploiting distinctive planetary signatures have been proposed. Here we explore a novel possibility: detecting exoplanets around bright variable stars based on the variability-phase difference between the speckles and the reflected light from the planet. Hot variable stars (the kind most favorable to this idea) host relatively distant Habitable Zones, which will allow a considerable phase delay to be displayed by planet in reflection. We have carried out a systematic series of simulations and analysis to explore the potential for this method. We show that this technique could improve contrast reach of an extreme-AO imagery by a factor of 5-10 against speckle noise.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Mutian Wang, Peter Tuthill, and Barnaby Norris "Finding exoplanets in the habitable zone with light echoes", Proc. SPIE 11448, Adaptive Optics Systems VII, 114484V (13 December 2020); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2559345

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