Direct detection of hot extrasolar planets with the VLTI using differential interferometry

Bruno Lopez; Romain Gueorguiev Petrov; Martin Vannier

doi:10.1117/12.390233

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5 July 2000 Direct detection of hot extrasolar planets with the VLTI using differential interferometry

Bruno Lopez, Romain Gueorguiev Petrov, Martin Vannier

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Proceedings Volume 4006, Interferometry in Optical Astronomy; (2000) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.390233
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 2000, Munich, Germany

Abstract

We evaluate the potential of differential interferometry using the AMBER and MIDI instruments of the VLT interferometer for the direct detection and the study of atmospheric characteristics of hot giant extrasolar planets around nearby stars. Differential interferometry has been shown to allow unbiased measurements of phase and/or visibility variations with wavelengths. For a star and planet system (as for any binary), these measurements at several orbital phases yield the angular separation and the spectrum of the components. We present an evaluation of the fundamental measurement uncertainty resulting from source and sky photon noise and detector noise. This shows that, with two 8 meters telescopes and at least an 80 meters baseline, some hot Jupiter like planets could be detected, by differential interferometry, if the semi-major axis of their orbit is less than 0.1 astronomical units and assuming a solar type star at 10 pc.

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Bruno Lopez, Romain Gueorguiev Petrov, and Martin Vannier "Direct detection of hot extrasolar planets with the VLTI using differential interferometry", Proc. SPIE 4006, Interferometry in Optical Astronomy, (5 July 2000); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.390233

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