Description
Organiser: Aurelie Magniez; co organisers: Kathryn Hartley, Deborah Malone
Scientific interest in the search for exoplanets has reached a new level with the development of innovative technologies that promise to reveal undiscovered planetary systems. The current instruments, which use techniques such as radial velocity, direct imaging or transit, have enhanced our comprehension of exoplanets. However, their capabilities are constrained to observing only a limited number of planetary systems. To overcome these constraints, researchers are developing innovative technologies and methods in spectroscopy, adaptive optics, interferometry and other areas with the aim of improving performance. Consequently, innovative projects such as the PLATO space mission and the Planetary Camera Spectrograph (PCS) on the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) are being developed to observe a wider range of exoplanets in greater detail. These instruments will facilitate the identification of smaller, Earth-like planets and provide deeper insights into their atmospheres and potential habitability.
This session will present the latest advances in exoplanet instrumentation, emphasise significant forthcoming missions, and examine how these developments will enhance our capacity to detect and characterise exoplanets, unlocking new avenues for understanding planetary systems.
In order for ESOโs Planetary Camera and Spectrograph for the ELT (ELT-PCS) to image rocky exoplanets at small angular separations around nearby stars, each component of the instrument (IFU, XAO, Coronagraph, postprocessing etc.) will need to operate at the maximum possible performance. As a result, the R&D phase of the instrument development, recently kicked off in September 2024 at ESO...
HD20794 is a G6V-type star known for hosting a multi-planetary system. It is bright (V-mag = 4.27) and close (d = 6.04 pc), and the extraordinary stability of the star during tens of years of HARPS observing campaigns made it a preferential target of RV surveys. Several works on the system found different planets with different properties. We revisited the planetary system of HD 20794, taking...
We present the exoplanet and planet formation science case for a new beam combination instrument for ESOโs VLT Interferometer, named BIFROST. This instrument is funded through the European Research Council and is due to be commissioned on Paranal in 2026 as part of the "Asgard Suite" of VLTI visitor instruments.
BIFROST will be the first VLTI instrument optimised for short wavelengths...
SCALES (Slicer Combined with an Array of Lenslets for Exoplanet Spectroscopy) is a high-contrast Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS) operating in the 2โ5 micron range, designed for detailed studies of exoplanets and their atmospheres. Like other lenslet-based IFSs, it generates a short micro-spectrum for each micro-pupil formed by the lenslet array.
To enhance spectral resolution, an image...
Recent spectral observatories stand to revolutionise our ability to study exoplanets on a larger population scale than ever before. New space-based instruments such as Ariel, alongside existing ground-based spectrographs at the ELT are set to generate vast quantities of atmospheric spectral data over the next ten years. Analysing this data requires extracting information about the planetary...
Exoplanet imaging requires extremely high AO performance over a small field of view to achieve the required contrast. The next generation of high contrast instruments, such as the Planet Camera and Spectrograph (PCS) for the ELT, will put even greater demands on AO performance. The Pyramid Wavefront Sensor (PWFS) (Ragazzoni, 1996) is widely recognised as providing the best closed-loop...
