The Gemini Planet Imager

Bruce Macintosh; James Graham; David Palmer; Rene Doyon; Don Gavel; James Larkin; Ben Oppenheimer; Leslie Saddlemyer; J. Kent Wallace; Brian Bauman; Julia Evans; Darren Erikson; Katie Morzinski; Donald Phillion; Lisa Poyneer; Anand Sivaramakrishnan; Remi Soummer; Simon Thibault; Jean-Pierre Veran

doi:10.1117/12.672430

27 June 2006 The Gemini Planet Imager

Bruce Macintosh, James Graham, David Palmer, Rene Doyon, Don Gavel, James Larkin, Ben Oppenheimer, Leslie Saddlemyer, J. Kent Wallace, Brian Bauman, Julia Evans, Darren Erikson, Katie Morzinski, Donald Phillion, Lisa Poyneer, Anand Sivaramakrishnan, Remi Soummer, Simon Thibault, Jean-Pierre Veran

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 6272, Advances in Adaptive Optics II; 62720L (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.672430
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2006, Orlando, Florida , United States

Abstract

The next major 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 class telescope to achieve contrast levels of 10^-7 to 10^-8, sufficient to detect warm self-luminous Jovian planets in the solar neighborhood. 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 structure of other solar systems. We have begun the construction of such a system for the Gemini Observatory. Dubbed the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), this instrument should be deployed in 2010 on the Gemini South telescope. It combines a 2000-actuator MEMS-based AO system, an apodized-pupil Lyot coronagraph, a precision infrared interferometer for real-time wavefront calibration at the nanometer level, and a infrared integral field spectrograph for detection and characterization of the target planets. GPI will be able to achieve Strehl ratios > 0.9 at 1.65 microns and to observe a broad sample of science targets with I band magnitudes less than 8. In addition to planet detection, GPI will also be capable of polarimetric imaging of circumstellar dust disks, studies of evolved stars, and high-Strehl imaging spectroscopy of bright targets. We present here an overview of the GPI instrument design, an error budget highlighting key technological challenges, and models of the system performance.

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Bruce Macintosh, James Graham, David Palmer, Rene Doyon, Don Gavel, James Larkin, Ben Oppenheimer, Leslie Saddlemyer, J. Kent Wallace, Brian Bauman, Julia Evans, Darren Erikson, Katie Morzinski, Donald Phillion, Lisa Poyneer, Anand Sivaramakrishnan, Remi Soummer, Simon Thibault, and Jean-Pierre Veran "The Gemini Planet Imager", Proc. SPIE 6272, Advances in Adaptive Optics II, 62720L (27 June 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.672430

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