A Survey of Close, Young Stars with the Simultaneous Differential Imager (SDI) at the VLT and MMT

Simple item page
dc.creatorBiller, Beth A.
dc.creatorClose, Laird M.
dc.creatorMasciadri, Elena
dc.creatorLenzen, Rainer
dc.creatorBrandner, Wolfgang
dc.creatorMcCarthy, Donald
dc.creatorHenning, Thomas
dc.creatorNielsen, Eric
dc.creatorHartung, Markus
dc.date2006-01-03
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T06:56:53Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T06:56:53Z
dc.descriptionWe discuss the preliminary results of a survey of young (<300 Myr), close (<50 pc) stars with the Simultaneous Differential Extrasolar Planet Imager (SDI) implemented at the VLT and the MMT. SDI uses a double Wollaston prism and a quad filter to take 4 identical images simultaneously at 3 wavelengths surrounding the 1.62 um methane bandhead found in the spectrum of cool brown dwarfs and gas giants. By performing a difference of images in these filters, speckle noise from the primary can be significantly attenuated, resulting in photon noise limited data. In our survey data, we achieved H band contrasts >25000 (5 sigma Delta F1(1.575 um) > 10 mag, Delta H > 11.5 mag for a T6 spectral type) at a separation of 0.5" from the primary star. With this degree of attenuation, we should be able to image (5 sigma detection) a 2-4 Jupiter mass planet at 5 AU around a 30 Myr star at 10 pc. We are currently completing our survey of young, nearby stars. We have obtained complete datasets for 35 stars in the southern sky (VLT) and 7 stars in the northern sky (MMT). We believe that our SDI images are the highest contrast astronomical images ever made from ground or space for methane rich companions.
dc.description7 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Presented at IAU Colloquium 200, Direct Imaging of Exoplanets: Science and Techniques. For high resolution figures, see IAUC 200 conference proceedings
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0601062
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0601062
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/106768
dc.subjectAstrophysics
dc.titleA Survey of Close, Young Stars with the Simultaneous Differential Imager (SDI) at the VLT and MMT
dc.typetext

Files

Collections

arXiv