The SPHERE infrared survey for exoplanets (SHINE). III. The demographics of young giant exoplanets below 300 au with SPHERE

The SHINE project is a 500-star survey performed with SPHERE on the VLT for the purpose of directly detecting new substellar companions and understanding their formation and early evolution. Here we present an initial statistical analysis for a subsample of 150 stars that are representative of the full SHINE sample. Our goal is to constrain the frequency of substellar companions with masses between 1 and 75 MJup and semimajor axes between 5 and 300 au. We adopt detection limits as a function of angular separation from the survey data for all stars converted into mass and projected orbital separation using the BEX-COND-hot evolutionary tracks and known distance to each system. Based on the results obtained for each star and on the 13 detections in the sample, we use a MCMC tool to compare our observations to two different types of models. The first is a parametric model based on observational constraints, and the second type are numerical models that combine advanced core accretion and gravitational instability planet population synthesis. Using the parametric model, we show that the frequencies of systems with at least one substellar companion are $23.0_{-9.7}^{+13.5}\%$, $5.8_{-2.8}^{+4.7}\%$, and $12.6_{-7.1}^{+12.9}\%$ for BA, FGK, and M stars, respectively. We also demonstrate that a planet-like formation pathway probably dominates the mass range from 1-75 MJup for companions around BA stars, while for M dwarfs, brown dwarf binaries dominate detections. In contrast, a combination of binary star-like and planet-like formation is required to best fit the observations for FGK stars. Using our population model and restricting our sample to FGK stars, we derive a frequency of $5.7_{-2.8}^{+3.8}\%$, consistent with predictions from the parametric model. More generally, the frequency values that we derive are in excellent agreement with values obtained in previous studies.Comment: 24 pages, 14 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in A&

The SPHERE Infrared Survey for Exoplanets (SHINE): II. Observations, Data Reduction and Analysis, Detection Performances, and Initial Results

Context. In recent decades, direct imaging has confirmed the existence of substellar companions (exoplanets or brown dwarfs) on wide orbits (>10 au) around their host stars. In striving to understand their formation and evolution mechanisms, in 2015 we initiated the SPHERE infrared survey for exoplanets (SHINE), a systematic direct imaging survey of young, nearby stars that is targeted at exploring their demographics. Aims. We aim to detect and characterize the population of giant planets and brown dwarfs beyond the snow line around young, nearby stars. Combined with the survey completeness, our observations offer the opportunity to constrain the statistical properties (occurrence, mass and orbital distributions, dependency on the stellar mass) of these young giant planets. Methods. In this study, we present the observing and data analysis strategy, the ranking process of the detected candidates, and the survey performances for a subsample of 150 stars that are representative of the full SHINE sample. Observations were conducted in a homogeneous way between February 2015 and February 2017 with the dedicated ground-based VLT/SPHERE instrument equipped with the IFS integral field spectrograph and the IRDIS dual-band imager, covering a spectral range between 0.9 and 2.3 μm. We used coronographic, angular, and spectral differential imaging techniques to achieve the best detection performances for this study, down to the planetary mass regime. Results. We processed, in a uniform manner, more than 300 SHINE observations and datasets to assess the survey typical sensitivity as a function of the host star and of the observing conditions. The median detection performance reached 5σ-contrasts of 13 mag at 200 mas and 14.2 mag at 800 mas with the IFS (YJ and YJH bands), and of 11.8 mag at 200 mas, 13.1 mag at 800 mas, and 15.8 mag at 3 as with IRDIS in H band, delivering one of the deepest sensitivity surveys thus far for young, nearby stars. A total of sixteen substellar companions were imaged in this first part of SHINE: seven brown dwarf companions and ten planetary-mass companions.These include two new discoveries, HIP 65426 b and HIP 64892 B, but not the planets around PDS70 that had not been originally selected for the SHINE core sample. A total of 1483 candidates were detected, mainly in the large field of view that characterizes IRDIS. The color-magnitude diagrams, low-resolution spectrum (when available with IFS), and follow-up observations enabled us to identify the nature (background contaminant or comoving companion) of about 86% of our subsample. The remaining cases are often connected to crowded-field follow-up observations that were missing. Finally, even though SHINE was not initially designed for disk searches, we imaged twelve circumstellar disks, including three new detections around the HIP 73145, HIP 86598, and HD 106906 systems. Conclusions. Nowadays, direct imaging provides a unique opportunity to probe the outer part of exoplanetary systems beyond 10 au to explore planetary architectures, as highlighted by the discoveries of: one new exoplanet, one new brown dwarf companion, and three new debris disks during this early phase of SHINE. It also offers the opportunity to explore and revisit the physical and orbital properties of these young, giant planets and brown dwarf companions (relative position, photometry, and low-resolution spectrum in near-infrared, predicted masses, and contrast in order to search for additional companions). Finally, these results highlight the importance of finalizing the SHINE systematic observation of about 500 young, nearby stars for a full exploration of their outer part to explore the demographics of young giant planets beyond 10 au and to identify the most interesting systems for the next generation of high-contrast imagers on very large and extremely large telescopes. © M. Langlois et al. 2021.SPHERE is an instrument designed and built by a consortium consisting of IPAG (Grenoble, France), MPIA (Heidelberg, Germany), LAM (Marseille, France), LESIA (Paris, France), Laboratoire Lagrange (Nice, France), INAF – Osservatorio di Padova (Italy), Observatoire de Genève (Switzerland), ETH Zürich (Switzerland), NOVA (Netherlands), ONERA (France) and ASTRON (Netherlands) in collaboration with ESO. SPHERE was funded by ESO, with additional contributions from CNRS (France), MPIA (Germany), INAF (Italy), FINES (Switzerland) and NOVA (Netherlands). SPHERE also received funding from the European CommissionSixth and Seventh Framework Programmes as part of the Optical Infrared Coordination Network for Astronomy (OPTICON) under grant number RII3-Ct-2004-001566 for FP6 (2004-2008), grant number 226604 for FP7 (2009-2012) and grant number 312430 for FP7 (2013-2016). This paper is based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory under ESO programmes 198.C-0209, 097.C-0865, 095.C-0298, 095.C-0309,096.C-0241. This work has made use of the SPHERE Data Centre, jointly operated by OSUG/IPAG (Grenoble), PYTHEAS/LAM/CeSAM (Marseille), OCA/Lagrange (Nice), Observatoire de Paris/LESIA (Paris), and Observatoire de Lyon (OSUL/CRAL). This work is supported by the French National Research Agency in the framework of the Investissements d’Avenir program (ANR-15-IDEX-02), through the funding of the “Origin of Life” project of the Univ. Grenoble-Alpes. This work is jointly supported by the French National Programms (PNP and PNPS) and by the Action Spécifique Haute Résolution Angulaire (ASHRA) of CNRS/INSU co-funded by CNES. We also thank the anonymous referee for her/his careful reading of the manuscript as well as her/his insightful comments and suggestions. AV acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 757561). A.-M.L. acknowledges funding from French National Research Agency (GIPSE project). C.P. acknowledges financial support from Fondecyt (grant 3190691) and financial support from the ICM (Iniciativa Científica Milenio) via the Núcleo Milenio de Formación Planetaria grant, from the Universidad de Valparaíso. T.H. acknowledges support from the European Research Council under the Horizon 2020 Framework Program via the ERC Advanced Grant Origins 832428

Development of the adaptive optics testbed LOOPS for Fourier-based wavefront sensors demonstration and analysis

International audienceWe present in this paper the latest news about the adaptive optics facility bench LOOPS at LAM. A review of the scheme of the bench is first given, going through the optical path module after module. The first results obtained with a spatial light modulator, used to produce high-definition reprogrammable focal phase mask, are then presented

The self-coherent camera as a focal plane fine phasing sensor

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The self-coherent camera as a focal plane phasing sensor

Exoplanets imaging requires very high angular resolution that will be reached with the forthcoming generation of extremely large telescopes. In order to achieve the high performance required for the astronomical science programs, the errors due to segment misalignment must be reduced to tens of nm. Therefore the development of new co-phasing techniques is of critical importance for ground-based telescopes, and to a large extent for future space-based missions. We propose a new co-phasing method directly exploiting the scientific image delivered by the self coherent camera (SCC) by adequately combining segment misalignment estimators (piston and tip/tilt) and image processing. The extension of the SCC concept towards a co-phasing sensor is presented and its parameter space and performance for phasing a segmented telescope are studied by means of intensive numerical simulations. The self-coherent camera phasing sensor (SCC-PS) is shown to be capable of estimating accurately and simultaneously piston and tip/tilt misalignments and to correct them in close-loop operation in a few iterations. The final residual RMS values over the pupil obtained with the SCC-PS are compared to similar simulations of another co-phasing sensor and we show that the SCC-PS gives the same or even better results by requiring less iterations. By contrast to several phasing sensor concepts the SCC-PS does not require any a priori knowledge on the signal at the segment boundaries, or a dedicated optical path. The SCC-PS is a non-invasive concept that works directly on the scientific image of the instrument, either in a coronagrahic or a non-coronagraphic observing mode. The primary results obtained in this study are very promising and demonstrate that the SCC-PS is a serious candidate for segment co-phasing at the instrument level or at the telescope level for both ground- and space-based applications

The self-coherent camera as a focal plane phasing sensor

International audienceExoplanets imaging requires very high angular resolution that will be reached with the forthcoming generation of extremely large telescopes. In order to achieve the high performance required for the astronomical science programs, the errors due to segment misalignment must be reduced to tens of nm. Therefore the development of new co-phasing techniques is of critical importance for ground-based telescopes, and to a large extent for future space-based missions. We propose a new co-phasing method directly exploiting the scientific image delivered by the self coherent camera (SCC) by adequately combining segment misalignment estimators (piston and tip/tilt) and image processing. The extension of the SCC concept towards a co-phasing sensor is presented and its parameter space and performance for phasing a segmented telescope are studied by means of intensive numerical simulations. The self-coherent camera phasing sensor (SCC-PS) is shown to be capable of estimating accurately and simultaneously piston and tip/tilt misalignments and to correct them in close-loop operation in a few iterations. The final residual RMS values over the pupil obtained with the SCC-PS are compared to similar simulations of another co-phasing sensor and we show that the SCC-PS gives the same or even better results by requiring less iterations. By contrast to several phasing sensor concepts the SCC-PS does not require any a priori knowledge on the signal at the segment boundaries, or a dedicated optical path. The SCC-PS is a non-invasive concept that works directly on the scientific image of the instrument, either in a coronagrahic or a non-coronagraphic observing mode. The primary results obtained in this study are very promising and demonstrate that the SCC-PS is a serious candidate for segment co-phasing at the instrument level or at the telescope level for both ground- and space-based applications

Fine cophasing of segmented aperture telescopes with ZELDA, a Zernike wavefront sensor in the diffraction‐limited regime

International audienceContext. Segmented aperture telescopes require an alignment procedure with successive steps from coarse alignment to monitoring process in order to provide very high optical quality images for stringent science operations such as exoplanet imaging. The final step, referred to as fine phasing, calls for a high sensitivity wavefront sensing and control system in a diffraction‐limited regime to achieve segment alignment with nanometric accuracy. In this context, Zernike wavefront sensors represent promising options for such a calibration. A concept called the Zernike unit for segment phasing (ZEUS) was previously developed for ground‐based applications to operate under seeing‐limited images. Such a concept is, however, not suitable for fine cophasing with diffraction‐limited images.Aims. We revisit ZELDA, a Zernike sensor that was developed for the measurement of residual aberrations in exoplanet direct imagers, to measure segment piston, tip, and tilt in the diffraction‐limited regime.Methods. We introduce a novel analysis scheme of the sensor signal that relies on piston, tip, and tilt estimators for each segment, and provide probabilistic insights to predict the success of a closed‐loop correction as a function of the initial wavefront error.Results. The sensor unambiguously and simultaneously retrieves segment piston and tip‐tilt misalignment. Our scheme allows for correction of these errors in closed‐loop operation down to nearly zero residuals in a few iterations. This sensor also shows low sensitivity to misalignment of its parts and high ability for operation with a relatively bright natural guide star.Conclusions. Our cophasing sensor relies on existing mask technologies that make the concept already available for segmented apertures in future space missions

The self-coherent camera-phasing sensor : from numerical simulations to early experiments

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