A&A 546, A24 (2012) Astronomy DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201219736 & c ESO 2012 Astrophysics High-contrast imaging of the close environment of HD 142527 VLT/NaCo adaptive optics thermal and angular differential imaging, J. Rameau1, G. Chauvin1, A.-M. Lagrange1, P. Thébault2, J. Milli1, J. H. Girard3, and M. Bonnefoy4 1 Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble, UJF, CNRS, 414 rue de la piscine, 38400 Saint-Martin d’Hères, France e-mail:
[email protected] 2 LESIA-Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, UMPC Univ. Paris 6, Univ. Paris 7 Diderot, 92195 Meudon, France 3 European Southern Observatory, Alonso de Cordóva 3107, Vitacura, Santiago, Chile 4 Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany Received 1 June 2012 / Accepted 6 August 2012 ABSTRACT Context. It has long been suggested that circumstellar disks surrounding young stars may be the signposts of planets, and even more so since the recent discoveries of embedded substellar companions. According to models, the planet-disk interaction may create large structures, gaps, rings, or spirals in the disk. In that sense, the Herbig star HD 142527 is particularly compelling, as its massive disk displays intriguing asymmetries that suggest the existence of a dynamical peturber of unknown nature. Aims. Our goal was to obtain deep thermal images of the close circumstellar environment of HD 142527 to re-image the reported close-in structures (cavity, spiral arms) of the disk and to search for stellar and substellar companions that could be connected to their presence. Methods. We obtained high-contrast images with the NaCo adaptive optics system at the Very Large Telescope in L-band.