Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-fv566 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-19T13:44:56.975Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Dome C: A unique site for high-contrast imaging and extrasolar planet searching with a large telescope

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2006

M. Giard ,
F. Casoli ,
F. Paletou ,
O. Lardière ,
M. Carbillet ,
A. Riccardi ,
P. Salinari  and
C. Aime
O. Lardière*
Affiliation:
INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, 50125 Firenze, Italy;
M. Carbillet
Affiliation:
INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, 50125 Firenze, Italy;
A. Riccardi
Affiliation:
INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, 50125 Firenze, Italy;
P. Salinari
Affiliation:
INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, 50125 Firenze, Italy;
C. Aime
Affiliation:
LUAN-UMR 6525, Univ. de Nice, Parc Valrose, 06108 Nice Cedex 2, France
*
lardiere@obs-hp.fr
Get access

Abstract


 The Dome C should benefit from an outstanding atmospheric quality during the night due to catabatic wind conditions (wind speed ~ 2 m s-1, r0 ~ 0.3 m). From analytical and numerical simulations, we show that these seeing conditions are very advantageous for high-contrast imaging and coronagraphic search of exoplanets in the near-IR with adaptive optics (AO): from the Dome C, the planet SNR is 4 times greater than from Mauna-Kea.
For these reasons, the Dome C seems to be the natural site for a Planet-Finder consisting in a 2–8 m (possibly off-axis) monolithic telescope equipped with a fast and extreme AO (f ~ 1–2 kHz, f ~ cm), a low-aliasing wave-front sensor (WFS), a coronagraph and a speckle-noise subtraction. In these optimal conditions, a 3.6 m and a 8.2 m-telescope can respectively detect a Jupiter-size and an Earth-size planet at 10 pc in 10h in J band. Lastly, a 15–30 m ELT located at the Dome C could perform fast spectral analysis of Earth-like planets for biomarker searching.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Astronomical Society Publications Series , Volume 14: Dome C Astronomy and Astrophysics Meeting , 2005 , pp. 291 - 296
Copyright
© EAS, EDP Sciences, 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)