Context. Young giant planets and brown dwarf companions emit near- infrared radiation that can be linearly polarized up to several percent. This polarization can reveal the presence of an (unresolved) circumsubstellar accretion disk, rotation-induced …
LOUPE, the Lunar Observatory for Unresolved Polarimetry of the Earth, is a small, robust spectro-polarimeter for observing the Earth as an exoplanet. Detecting Earth-like planets in stellar habitable zones is one of the key challenges of modern …
Context. Polarimetric imaging is one of the most effective techniques for high-contrast imaging and for the characterization of protoplanetary disks, and it has the potential of becoming instrumental in the characterization of exoplanets. The …
Context. Circumstellar disks and self-luminous giant exoplanets or companion brown dwarfs can be characterized through direct- imaging polarimetry at near-infrared wavelengths. SPHERE/IRDIS at the Very Large Telescope has the capabilities to perform …
Context. Polarimetric images of circumstellar environments, even when corrected with adaptive optics, have a limited angular resolution. Finite resolution greatly affects polarimetric images because of the canceling of adjacent polarization signals …
Context. Protoplanetary disks are the birth environments of planetary systems. Therefore, the study of young, circumstellar environments is essential in understanding the processes taking place in planet formation and the evolution of planetary …
Context. The SPHERE planet finder is an extreme adaptive optics (AO) instrument for high resolution and high contrast observations at the Very Large Telescope (VLT). We describe the Zurich Imaging Polarimeter (ZIMPOL), the visual focal plane …
Aims: To understand planet formation it is necessary to study the birth environment of planetary systems. Resolved imaging of young planet forming disks allows us to study this environment in great detail and find signs of planet-disk interaction and …
With the Spectro-Polarimetric High- contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument at ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) we can study the linear polarisation of directly detected planets and brown dwarfs, to learn about their atmospheres and immediate …