Slide 1

Ben R. Oppenheimer, Sasha Hinkley, Anand Sivaramakrishnan, Remi Soummer, Douglas Brenner Ian Parry, David King, Steve Medlen http://lyot.org PROJECT 1640 AN ANCILLARY OF Slide 2 Digital Universe: http://haydenplanetarium.org Slide 3 Planets are complex Vogt-Russell Theorem: mass and chemical composition are sufficient to determine the structure, evolution and outward appearance of a star completely Planets have a diversity possibly unmatched in astronomy, and the theorem does not apply Terrestrial Planets to scale Giants to scale The onset of complexity perhaps begins in the brown dwarf mass range where age is needed as well. In coolest or lowest mass BDs, more complexity: The chemistry and SEDs are drastically affected by minor changes in composition, mass, age A few simple parameters are insufficient to determine a planets salient features. Slide 4 3.6 m telescope atop Haleakela (Maui) 941 actuator AO system 80-90% Strehl at H-Band Optimized, diffraction-limited coronagraph 30 stars observed ( 1 candidate planet, 7 BDs, 3 disks) Differential Polarimeter working Integral Field Unit being built now Slide 5 Planet and Brown Dwarf Sensitivity Lyot Project Discovery Space Known but Known butunseenexoplanets (Marcy et al. 2003) Slide 6 Some Nearby Star H-Band 15 minute exp. Speckles are the bane of any exoplanet imager, even in space! Weird colors (i, z, J, H, K) Companionshipconfirmed H-Band S ~ 80-90% Slide 7 Dynamic VegaCompanion Mass limits DynamicRange Polarimetry Speckle subtraction CurrentPerformance Slide 8 HR4796 Oppenheimer et al., in prep. Slide 9 Project 1640: Integral Field Unit Seeing through the speckles Data Cube Movie 10 nm Steps S ~ 90% = 1.6 m (1.0 at left) = 1.6 m (1.0 at left) Planet has flat spectrum AO Performance matched to current matched to current AEOS performance AEOS performance Slide 10 Optics R ~ 30-100 lenslet-based IFU J-H band (1-1.85 m) 4 FOV (200x200 spatial pixels) First Light Jan 2008 ~0.5 m Dewar is Identical to PHAROs HAWAII-II Array Lenslet Array Prism Slide 11 Planet and Brown Dwarf Sensitivity PALM3000 + P1640 Discovery Space Known but Known butunseenexoplanets (Marcy et al. 2003) Slide 12 Project 1640 Passed CDR Fully funded ($1.8M) Design Review included 4 external people: Jamie Lloyd (Cornell), James Larkin (UCLA), David Schiminovich (Columbia) Russ Makidon (STScI) Recommendation: collaboration with the Palomar Observatory should be sought immediately to put the team and Palomar at the forefront of high contrast science July at AMNH Concept: Bring 1640 to 200 put it and a small version of Lyot behind the 3000 actuator AO system Slide 13 P1640 with PALM3000 PALAO (prior to upgrade): 1-2 magnitude improvement over AEOS but much fainter stars are accessible LGS: Galaxies Solar System science (eg Kuiper belt moon spectroscopy) Young stars Debris disk science - spatially resolved chemistry M-dwarf companions Evolved star astrophysics Unique capability for years to come Gemini Planet Imager and VLTs SPHERE slated for late 2010 and both are in the south, and perhaps only marginally more sensitive Hundreds of planets, circumstellar disk chemistry, disk evolution We have the money, the people and an instrument. Palomar is the best place in the world suited to do this work Slide 14 Ten Years of Coronagraphy A Decade of Coronagraphy Part of Palomars Heritage is Cutting-degeCoronagraphy