Proxima Centauri

Visible Extreme Adaptive Optics On Extremely Large Telescopes: Towards Detecting Oxygen In Proxima Centauri b And Analog

By Keith Cowing

Status Report

astro-ph.EP

September 6, 2023

Filed under adaptive optics, astro-ph.EP, atmosphere, Biosignatures, exoplanet, imaging, Proxima Centauri, Proxima Centauri b

Visible Extreme Adaptive Optics On Extremely Large Telescopes: Towards Detecting Oxygen In Proxima Centauri b And Analog — Schematic of the proposed UNDERGROUND instrument setup. A high-speed high-order loop corrects the atmosphere to maintain images with high Strehl ratios. A slow loop at 10 Hz creates a dark hole region where all starlight is removed. This dark hole is maintained at high speed by the wavefront sensor that is integrated into the coronagraph. — astro-ph.EP

Looking to the future of exo-Earth imaging from the ground, core technology developments are required in visible extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) to enable the observation of atmospheric features such as oxygen on rocky planets in visible light.

UNDERGROUND (Ultra-fast AO techNology Determination for Exoplanet imageRs from the GROUND), a collaboration built in Feb. 2023 at the Optimal Exoplanet Imagers Lorentz Workshop, aims to (1) motivate oxygen detection in Proxima Centauri b and analogs as an informative science case for high-contrast imaging and direct spectroscopy, (2) overview the state of the field with respect to visible exoplanet imagers, and (3) set the instrumental requirements to achieve this goal and identify what key technologies require further development.

J. Fowler, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Maaike A.M. van Kooten, Rico Landman, Alexis Bidot, Adrien Hours, Mamadou N’Diaye, Olivier Absil, Lisa Altinier, Pierre Baudoz, Ruslan Belikov, Markus Johannes Bonse, Kimberly Bott, Bernhard Brandl, Alexis Carlotti, Sarah L. Casewell, Elodie Choquet, Nicolas B. Cowan, Niyati Desai, David Doelman, Kevin Fogarty, Timothy D. Gebhard, Yann Gutierrez, Olivier Guyon, Olivier Herscovici-Schiller, Roser Juanola-Parramon, Matthew Kenworthy, Elina Kleisioti, Lorenzo Konig, Mariya Krasteva, Iva Laginja, Lucie Leboulleux, Johan Mazoyer, Maxwell A. Millar-Blanchaer, David Mouillet, Emiel Por, Laurent Pueyo, Frans Snik, Dirk van Dam, Kyle van Gorkom, Sophia R. Vaughan

Comments: SPIE Proceeding: 2023 / 12680-67
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
Cite as: arXiv:2309.00725 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2309.00725v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2309.00725
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Submission history
From: Jules Fowler
[v1] Fri, 1 Sep 2023 20:22:02 UTC (2,252 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.00725
Astrobiology,

Keith Cowing

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻

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