SPHERE: a planet finder instrument for the VLT

By J. Beuzit, M. Feldt, K. Dohlen, David Mouillet, P. Puget, F. Wildi, L. Abe, J. Antichi, A. Baruffolo, P. Baudoz and 33 more. Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2006

508 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Direct detection and spectral characterization of extra-solar planets is one of the most exciting but also one of the most challenging areas in modern astronomy. The challenge consists in the very large contrast between the host star and the planet, larger than 12.5 magnitudes at very small angular separations, typically inside the seeing halo. The whole design of a "Planet Finder" instrument is therefore optimized towards reaching the highest contrast in a limited field of view and at short distances from the central star. Both evolved and young planetary systems can be detected, respectively through their reflected light and through the intrinsic planet emission. We present the science objectives, conceptual design and expected performance of the SPHERE instrument.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ac187621c0c3e5349566784eeb1fb71f2da087cb

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. David Mouillet
2. M. Kasper
3. Anthony Boccaletti
4. F. Allard
5. Roger Davies
6. Maud Langlois
7. A. Vigan
8. C. Moutou

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. F. Allard
2. Roger Davies
3. M. Kasper
4. C. Moutou

In Instrumentation

1. David Mouillet
2. Anthony Boccaletti
3. F. Allard
4. Roger Davies
5. M. Kasper
6. Maud Langlois
7. A. Vigan
8. C. Moutou

Citations in the corpus

• Adaptive Optics for Astronomy (2012, methodology): “Two dedicated extreme AO instruments will be SPHERE (Beuzit et al. 2006) and GPI (Macintosh et al. 2008), which are close to commissioning at the VLT and Gemini observatories.”
• Photometric characterization of exoplanets using angular and spectral differential imaging (2010, background): “GPI (Gemini Planet Imager) for Gemini South (Macintosh et al. 2006) and SPHERE (SpectroPolarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch) for the ESO-VLT (Beuzit et al. 2006) are the two leading instruments of that category.”