SEARCH for EXTRASOLAR PLANETS THROUGH HIGH CONTRAST DIFFRACTION LIMITED INTEGRAL FIELD SPECTROSCOPY Jacopo Antichi, Kjetil Dohlen
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SEARCH FOR EXTRASOLAR PLANETS THROUGH HIGH CONTRAST DIFFRACTION LIMITED INTEGRAL FIELD SPECTROSCOPY Jacopo Antichi, Kjetil Dohlen To cite this version: Jacopo Antichi, Kjetil Dohlen. SEARCH FOR EXTRASOLAR PLANETS THROUGH HIGH CON- TRAST DIFFRACTION LIMITED INTEGRAL FIELD SPECTROSCOPY. Astrophysics [astro-ph]. Università degli studi di Padova, 2007. English. tel-00580958 HAL Id: tel-00580958 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00580958 Submitted on 29 Mar 2011 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. SEARCH FOR EXTRASOLAR PLANETS THROUGH HIGH CONTRAST DIFFRACTION LIMITED INTEGRAL FIELD SPECTROSCOPY Jacopo Antichi Department of Astronomy University of Padova Thesis submitted towards the degree of Doctor of Philosophy April 2007 2 UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA, DIPARTIMENTO DI ASTRONOMIA Coordinatore: Ch.mo Prof. Giampaolo Piotto Relatori: Dott. Raffaele Gratton, INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova Dott. Massimo Turatto, INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova Controrelatore: Dr. Kjetil Dohlen, Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille & Observatoire Astronomique de Marseille Provence Data della Discussione: 26 Aprile 2007 3 4 Subject This Dissertation is devoted to high contrast diffraction limited Integral Field Spectroscopy for the direct imaging of extrasolar planets. The aim is to describe this subject in the domain of signals dominated by Speckles residual. This latter being the specific working case of the Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS) planned for the next Planet Finder instrument of the Very Large Telescope facility (SPHERE). In the effort of realizing the Integral Field Unit of this instrument, we found a new optical concept (BIGRE) allows to overcome all the features affecting the Slit Functions of a 3D-Spectrograph working in this optical regime. As a consequence, the proposed IFS is a complete BIGRE oriented instrument, optimized for the SPHERE system. More generally, the presented theory on diffraction limited Integral Field Spectroscopy is largely new and could contribute in advancing the field of high contrast imaging. 5 6 Summary Nowadays the extrasolar planet research can be raised to the level of a new chapter of Astrophysics, combining different domains of science: Physics of sub-stellar objects, Planetology, Astrobiology and Optics in an interdisciplinary way; in this sense, this matter “rides the wave” of the evolutive epoch we are leaving, the one of the interdisciplinary information. The statistics on the properties of planets and their parent stars is increasing monthly, and is opening the way to the next step of this research, the direct detection. The first direct detection of a stellar companion with a planetary mass, occurred only in 2004, when distinct images of a star 2M1207 and of its low-mass companion were finally obtained, exploiting a few among the best astronomical facilities available today: VLT/NACO and HST/NICMOS. After the first detection, the ones of GQ Lup b and AB Pictoris b followed in 2005. However, these cases should be considered the first pioneering efforts to try to collect separately the light of a planet from the one of the parent star and, at present, it remains a non-standard technique in Astronomy. Direct detection techniques, such the ones based on high contrast imaging or interferometry, could overcome the limits of the in-direct approaches. The Transit technique - for instance - provides the radius of a low-mass companion only. Derivation of the planet mass by the periodic variation of the stellar light curve is impossible unless Radial Velocity measures are available: the object may be a planet, but also a low mass star or a brown dwarf or a white dwarf, whose radii are similar to the Earth one. The Radial Velocity technique - in turn - is sensitive only to extrasolar planets with relatively small orbits, typically corresponding to objects at a distance smaller than a few AU from their parent star, or with high eccentricity. These limitations lead to ambiguous interpretations on the properties of what has been actually detected, biasing both single-object and statistical analyses. Simultaneous Differential Imaging (SDI) is a high contrast differential calibration technique, allowing to create several images taken at different wavelengths of the same field of view around a target star. Subtraction of simultaneous monochromatic images is a way to remove the Speckle Noise which dominates over any other optical pattern inside the angular separation boundary, where a suitable Adaptive Optics system restores the diffraction limit fixed by the telescope aperture. This calibration technique has produced already a number of important scientific results in the realm of sub-stellar objects, reaching star vs. planet Contrast of order of 104-105 with the NACO-SDI facility at the VLT. Presently, the Contrast threshold allowing to detect (young) Jupiter-like planets - around 107 - is the challenge for the next ground based Planet Finder projects as the European one SPHERE. SPHERE will mount the first Integral Field Spectrograph aimed to the direct detection of extrasolar planets. The theory joining 3D-Spectroscopy and extrasolar planets direct detection represents what, in this Dissertation, we defined as Spectroscopical Simultaneous Differential Imaging (S-SDI). In this frame, diffraction limited Integral field Spectroscopy is needed to obtain monochromatic images over the entire field of view around a target star. Then, through 3D-Spectroscopy, simultaneous difference of monochromatic images should exceed the standard Simultaneous Differential Imaging, based on chromatic filters only. The work presented in this Dissertation is entirely devoted to high contrast diffraction limited Integral Field Spectroscopy. The aim is to describe this subject, leading the reader to 7 approaching step by step the domain of diffraction limited Integral Field Spectroscopy, from the ideal case, up to the real case of a Speckle dominated input signal. This latter being the specific case of the SPHERE Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS). Design of a diffraction limited IFS requires careful consideration of a number of subtle effects, including not uniform illumination of the entrance aperture (causing diffraction patterns different from the classical Airy disk), cross talk between adjacent spaxels (i.e. pixels in the spatial dimension) caused by the wings of the diffraction profiles, and correct sampling in both spatial coordinates and wavelength. Appropriate consideration of these effects should be combined in a design where the largest field of view, spectral resolution and coverage are obtained at the cheapest possible cost (this being mainly driven by the number of detector pixels). In the effort of realizing the Integral Field Unit of this instrument, we found that a new optical concept - BIGRE - allows to overcome all the features affecting the Slit Functions of a 3D-Spectrograph working in this optical regime. As a consequence, the SPHERE Integral Field Spectrograph presented in this Dissertation is a complete BIGRE oriented instrument. The theory of a diffraction limited IFS presented in this Dissertation is largely new, and it is the most important original contribution of this work. Finally, this Dissertation ends describing the contribution we gave for the 3D-Spectroscopy facility foreseen within the EPICS instrument. EPICS is a feasibility study for a Planet Finder for the OWL Telescope promoted by ESO in 2005. It was based on a collaboration of expertises from all over Europe; the design explored different possible frameworks for the future European ELT. The structure of the Dissertation is as follows: in Section 1 we introduce the topic of extrasolar planet research; special emphasis is given to the model atmosphere for extrasolar giant planets, on which both Simultaneous Differential Imaging and the Spectroscopical Simultaneous Differential Imaging achieve their scientific reasons. Section 2 is dedicated to a panoramic description of the detection methods useful to the search for planets; here special emphasis is given in the comparison between direct and in-direct detection methods. The fact that in-direct detection method will remain fundamental even after direct detection techniques will be operative is clearly stated. In Section 3 Simultaneous Differential Imaging and Spectroscopical Simultaneous Differential Imaging are defined, described and compared. The important aspect here is that - in principle - S-SDI is much powerful that the standard SDI, and that the Integral Field Spectrograph of SPHERE could reach Constrast values as high as 107, i.e. the (young) Jupiter Contrast size. In Section 4 the SPHERE project is described as a whole, except for the Integral Field Spectrograph. Sections 5 and 6 are fully dedicated to this subject. Specifically, Section 5 is dedicated to the general description of the classical TIGER and the new BIGRE devices, and to the optimization of the BIGRE Integral Field Unit of this Integral Field Spectrograph. Results of laboratory prototyping are