CHINGAIPE , Peter

The discovery and characterisation of planets around other stars (or exoplanets) is one of the most exciting topics in modern astronomy. Indirect detection methods, which account for the vast majority of confirmed exoplanets thus far, have revealed the ubiquity and diversity of these worlds beyond our Solar System. However, rather than...

Kernel phase is a method to interpret stellar point source images by considering their formation as the analytical result of an interferometric process. Using Fourier formalism, this method allows for observing planetary companions around nearby stars at separations down to half a telescope resolution element, typically 20 mas for a 8m class...

The use of interferometric nulling for the direct characterization of extrasolar planets is an exciting prospect, but one that faces many practical challenges when deployed on telescopes. The largest limitation is the extreme sensitivity of nullers to any residual optical path differences between the incoming telescope beams even after adaptive...