Imaging Nearby Planetary Systems with the Gemini Planet Imager and Beyond
| Date/Time: | Monday, 09 Mar 2015 from 4:10 pm to 5:00 pm |
|---|---|
| Location: | Physics 0003 |
| Phone: | 515-294-5441 |
| Channel: | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences |
| Actions: | Download iCal/vCal | Email Reminder |
Abstract: The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), now in operation at Gemini South after a decade of development, is a new international facility instrument that achieves an order-of-magnitude improvement over prior systems for imaging planets and disks in the close environment of nearby bright stars. GPI can detect companions a million times fainter at less than an arcsecond separation, enabling study of young Jupiters on orbits comparable to the giant planets of our solar system. I'll describe the technologies that enable GPI to block stellar glare so well, and I'll present results from the instrument's on-sky commissioning during 2013-2014. First light science with GPI concentrated on in-depth studies of a few well-known planetary systems, in particular around HR 8799 and Beta Pic, and the disk around HR 4796A. Now that GPI is in full science operation, our team has begun an ambitious multi-year survey of 600 nearby star systems to detect and characterize new planets; in parallel, a wide range of exoplanetary and circumstellar disk explorations are being conducted by teams from across the Gemini community.
Supplemental resources:
Technical: Oppenheimer & Hinkley (2009), in Annual Reviews of Astronomy & Astrophysics
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009ARA%26A..47..253O
This is a comprehensive overview of exoplanet imaging: the science, the techniques, and the results (as of a few years ago at least.)
Non-technical: Here's some of the popular press coverage of our work from relatively recently:
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy...struments/
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/...xoplanets/