RESUMEN
A radial velocity (RV) survey for intermediate-mass giants has been operated for over a decade at Okayama Astrophysical Observatory (OAO). The OAO survey has revealed that some giants show long-term linear RV accelerations (RV trends), indicating the presence of outer companions. Direct imaging observations can help clarify what objects generate these RV trends. We present the results of high-contrast imaging observations of six intermediate-mass giants with long-term RV trends using the Subaru Telescope and HiCIAO camera. We detected co-moving companions to γ Hya B ( 0.61 - 0.14 + 0.12 M â ) , HD 5608 B (0.10 ± 0.01M â), and HD 109272 B (0.28 ± 0.06M â). For the remaining targets(ι Dra, 18 Del, and HD 14067) we exclude companions more massive than 30-60 M Jup at projected separations of 1''-7''. We examine whether these directly imaged companions or unidentified long-period companions can account for the RV trends observed around the six giants. We find that the Kozai mechanism can explain the high eccentricity of the inner planets ι Dra b, HD 5608 b, and HD 14067 b.
RESUMEN
We present high-contrast H-band polarized intensity images of the transitional disk around the young solar-like star LkCa 15. By utilizing Subaru/HiCIAO for polarimetric differential imaging, the angular resolution and the inner working angle reach 0.07 and r = 0â³.1, respectively. We obtained a clearly resolved gap (width â² 27 au) at ~48 au from the central star. This gap is consistent with images reported in previous studies. We also confirmed the existence of a bright inner disk with a misaligned position angle of 13° ±4° with respect to that of the outer disk, i.e., the inner disk is possibly warped. The large gap and the warped inner disk both point to the existence of a multiple planetary system with a mass of â² 1 M Jup.
RESUMEN
High-contrast imaging systems with a stellar halo suppression level of 10(-10) are required for direct detection of Earth-like extra-solar planets. We investigated a novel high-contrast imaging system with an unbalanced nulling interferometer (UNI) followed by phase and amplitude correction (PAC), which not only can reduce starlight but also can suppress the speckle level caused by wavefront aberrations. We successfully demonstrated that wavefront aberrations were sufficiently magnified by the UNI and the magnified aberrations were effectively corrected in amplitude and phase with two deformable mirrors. We confirmed that the suppression level of the speckle pattern with the proposed optics was beyond the limit of the adaptive optics performance.
RESUMEN
A 3-D Sagnac interferometer can null out light from an on-axis source achromatically. The 3-D Sagnac interferometer can make stable and achromatic pi phase shifts, because it has a common path structure. The achromaticity of the interferometer is theoretically proved by Jones calculus. The experimental setup is constructed, and its nulling characteristics are measured to be about 10(-6) at 5 lambda/d for green (lambda=532 nm) and red (lambda=633 nm) laser light simultaneously. This interferometer would be very useful for the direct detection of faint extrasolar planets.
RESUMEN
To attain deeper nulling for an extended incoherent star disk a scheme for an achromatic interfero-coronagraph, incorporating two common-path interferometers in tandem, is proposed. Analytical and numerical predictions of the performance, which are in reasonably good agreement, are presented. The predicted performance improvement, by using two interferometers in tandem, is demonstrated by a preliminary experiment. A star coronagraph based on the proposed technique has the possibility to reach a 10(-10) achromatic nulling contrast for an almost 10(-2) lambda/D effective source size.
RESUMEN
Algol and Comptage de Photons Nouvelle Génération (CPNG) are new generation photon counting cameras developed for high angular resolution in the visible by means of optical aperture synthesis and speckle interferometry and for photon noise limited fast imaging of biological targets. They are intensified CCDs. They have been built to benefit from improvements in photonic commercial components, sensitivity, and personal computer workstations processing power. We present how we achieve optimal performances (sensitivity and spatiotemporal resolution) by the combination of proper optical and electronics design, and real-time elaborated data processing. The number of pixels is 532 x 516 and 1024(2) read at a frame rate of 262 and 100 Hz for CPNG and Algol, respectively. The dark current is very low: 5.5 x 10(-4) e(-) .pixel(-1). s(-1). The saturation flux is approximately 7 photon events /pixel/s. Quantum efficiencies reach up to 36% and 26% in the visible with the GaAsP photocathodes and in the red with the GaAs ones, respectively, thanks to the sensitivity of the photocathodes and to the photon centroiding algorithm; they are likely the highest values reported for intensified CCDs.
RESUMEN
A three-dimensional common-path interferometer is proposed, which can achromatically null out an on-axis source while maintaining the detectability of an off-axis source. A geometric phase in the three-dimensional interferometer introduces an achromatic pi-phase shift to the light from the on-axis source, such that destructive interference nulls out the axial light at one of the ports of the interferometer. Light from the off-axis source, which is exempt from destructive interference, comes out from both ports with equal intensity. The common-path scheme makes the system highly immune to environmental disturbances. In the described experiment, a 6x10(-6) peak-to-peak nulling contrast was obtained.