165 research outputs found
PACOME: Optimal multi-epoch combination of direct imaging observations for joint exoplanet detection and orbit estimation
Exoplanet detections and characterizations via direct imaging require high
contrast and high angular resolution. These requirements typically require (i)
cutting-edge instrumental facilities, (ii) optimized differential imaging to
introduce a diversity in the signals of the sought-for objects, and (iii)
dedicated processing algorithms to further eliminate the residual stellar
leakages.
Substantial efforts have been undertaken on the design of more efficient
post-processing algorithms but their performance remains upper-bounded at
shorter angular separations due to the the lack of diversity induced by the
processing of each epoch of observations individually. We propose a new
algorithm that is able to combine several observations of the same star by
accounting for the Keplerian orbital motion across epochs of the sought-for
sources in order to constructively co-add their weak signals.
The proposed algorithm, PACOME, integrates an exploration of the plausible
orbits within a statistical detection and estimation formalism. It is extended
to a multi-epoch combination of the maximum likelihood framework of PACO, which
is a mono-epoch post-processing algorithm. We derive a reliable multi-epoch
detection criterion, interpretable both in terms of probability of detection
and of false alarm.
We tested the proposed algorithm on several datasets obtained from the
VLT/SPHERE instrument with IRDIS and IFS. By resorting to injections of
synthetic exoplanets, we show that PACOME is able to detect sources remaining
undetectable in mono-epoch frameworks. The gain in detection sensitivity scales
as high as the square root of the number of epochs. We also applied PACOME on a
set of observations from the HR 8799 star hosting four known exoplanets, which
are detected with very high signal-to-noise ratios. In addition, its
implementation is efficient, fast, and fully automatized.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&
Frame Combination Techniques for Ultra High-Contrast Imaging
We summarize here an experimental frame combination pipeline we developed for
ultra high-contrast imaging with systems like the upcoming VLT SPHERE
instrument. The pipeline combines strategies from the Drizzle technique, the
Spitzer IRACproc package, and homegrown codes, to combine image sets that may
include a rotating field of view and arbitrary shifts between frames. The
pipeline is meant to be robust at dealing with data that may contain non-ideal
effects like sub-pixel pointing errors, missing data points, non-symmetrical
noise sources, arbitrary geometric distortions, and rapidly changing point
spread functions. We summarize in this document individual steps and
strategies, as well as results from preliminary tests and simulations.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, SPIE conference pape
Development of an ELT XAO testbed using a self referenced Mach-Zehnder wavefront sensor
Extreme adaptive optics (XAO) has severe difficulties meeting the high speed (>1kHz), accuracy and photon efficiency requirements for future extremely large telescopes. An innovative high order adaptive optics system using a self-referenced Mach-Zehnder wavefront sensor (MZWFS) allows counteracting these limitations. In addition to its very high accuracy, this WFS is the most robust alternative to segments gaps and telescope spiders which can result in strong wavefront artifacts. In particular in XAO systems when the size of these gaps in the wavefront measurement is comparable to the sub aperture size, loss in performance can be very high. The MZWFS estimates the wavefront phase by measuring intensity differences between two outputs, with a λ/4 path length difference between its two legs, but is limited in dynamic range. During the past few years, such an XAO system has been studied by our team in the framework of 8-meter class telescopes. In this paper, we report on our latest results with the XAO testbed recently installed in CRAL laboratory, and dedicated to high contrast imaging with 30m-class telescopes (such as the E-ELT or the TMT). A woofer-tweeter architecture is used in order to deliver the required high Strehl ratio (>95%). It consists of a 12x12 deformable mirror (DM) and a 512x512 Spatial Light Modulator (SLM) characterized both using monochromatic and polychromatic light. We present our latest experimental results, including components characterization, close loop performances and sensitivity to calibration errors. This work is carried out in synergy with the validation of fast iterative wavefront reconstruction algorithms and the optimal treatment of phase ambiguities in order to mitigate the dynamical range limitation of such a wavefront sensor
Characterization of stellar companion from high-contrast long-slit spectroscopy data: The EXtraction Of SPEctrum of COmpanion (EXOSPECO) algorithm
High-contrast long-slit spectrographs can be used to characterize exoplanets.
High-contrast long-slit spectroscopic data are however corrupted by stellar
leakages which largely dominate other signals and make the process of
extracting the companion spectrum very challenging. This paper presents a
complete method to calibrate the spectrograph and extract the signal of
interest.
The proposed method is based on a flexible direct model of the high-contrast
long-slit spectroscopic data. This model explicitly accounts for the
instrumental response and for the contributions of both the star and the
companion. The contributions of these two components and the calibration
parameters are jointly estimated by solving a regularized inverse problem. This
problem having no closed-form solution, we propose an alternating minimization
strategy to effectively find the solution.
We have tested our method on empirical long-slit spectroscopic data and by
injecting synthetic companion signals in these data. The proposed
initialization and the alternating strategy effectively avoid the
self-subtraction bias, even for companions observed very close to the
coronagraphic mask. Careful modeling and calibration of the angular and
spectral dispersion laws of the instrument clearly reduce the contamination by
the stellar leakages. In practice, the outputs of the method are mostly driven
by a single hyper-parameter which tunes the level of regularization of the
companion SED.Comment: Paper under review by Astronomy & Astrophysic
Opioid prescribing practices and training needs of Québec family physicians for chronic noncancer pain
Abstract : AIM: To examine medical practices and training needs of Québec family physicians with respect to pain management and opioid prescription for chronic noncancer pain (CNCP).
METHODOLOGY: An online survey was carried out in 2016.
RESULTS: Of 636 respondents (43.0% men; 54.3% ≥ 50 years old), 15.2% and 70.9% felt very or somewhat confident that they could properly prescribe opioids for CNCP. Concerns related to abuse (72.5% strongly/somewhat agree), dependence (73.2%), and lack of support (75.4%) were the main barriers reported. Only 19.7% always/often screened their patients for risks of abuse and dependence using a screening tool. About two-thirds of participants (65.7%) had recently (last five years) taken part in continuing education programs on opioid use for CNCP and 73.4% on CNCP management. Patient evaluation and differential diagnoses of chronic pain syndromes were rated as a top priority for further training.
CONCLUSIONS: This study provides insights into Québec family physicians' concerns, practices, and needs with respect to the management of CNCP. Physicians' difficulties around the application of strategies to mitigate the problem of opioid abuse and addiction are worrying. The need to better train physicians in the field of pain and addiction cannot be emphasized enough
Adaptive Optics system of the Evanescent Wave Coronagraph (EvWaCo): optimised phase plate and DM characterisation
The Evanescent Wave Coronagraph (EvWaCo) is an achromatic coronagraph mask
with adjustable size over the spectral domain [600nm, 900nm] that will be
installed at the Thai National Observatory. We present in this work the
development of a bench to characterise its Extreme Adaptive Optics system (XAO)
comprising a DM192 ALPAO deformable mirror (DM) and a 15x15 Shack-Hartmann
wavefront sensor (SH-WFS). In this bench, the turbulence is simulated using a
rotating phase plate in a pupil plane. In general, such components are designed
using a randomly generated phase screen. Such single realisation does not
necessarily provide the wanted structure function. We present a solution to
design the printed pattern to ensure that the beam sees a strict and controlled
Kolmogorov statistics with the correct 2D structure function. This is essential
to control the experimental conditions in order to compare the bench results
with the numerical simulations and predictions. This bench is further used to
deeply characterise the full 27 mm pupil of the ALPAO DM using a 54x54 ALPAO
SH-WFS. We measure the average shape of its influence functions as well as the
influence function of each single actuator to study their dispersion. We study
the linearity of the actuator amplitude with the command as well as the
linearity of the influence function profile. We also study the actuator offsets
as well as the membrane shape at 0-command. This knowledge is critical to get a
forward model of the DM for the XAO control loop
SPHERE IRDIS and IFS astrometric strategy and calibration
We present the current results of the astrometric characterization of the VLT
planet finder SPHERE over 2 years of on-sky operations. We first describe the
criteria for the selection of the astrometric fields used for calibrating the
science data: binaries, multiple systems, and stellar clusters. The analysis
includes measurements of the pixel scale and the position angle with respect to
the North for both near-infrared subsystems, the camera IRDIS and the integral
field spectrometer IFS, as well as the distortion for the IRDIS camera. The
IRDIS distortion is shown to be dominated by an anamorphism of 0.60+/-0.02%
between the horizontal and vertical directions of the detector, i.e. 6 mas at
1". The anamorphism is produced by the cylindrical mirrors in the common path
structure hence common to all three SPHERE science subsystems (IRDIS, IFS, and
ZIMPOL), except for the relative orientation of their field of view. The
current estimates of the pixel scale and North angle for IRDIS are
12.255+/-0.009 milliarcseconds/pixel for H2 coronagraphic images and
-1.75+/-0.08 deg. Analyses of the IFS data indicate a pixel scale of
7.46+/-0.02 milliarcseconds/pixel and a North angle of -102.18+/-0.13 deg. We
finally discuss plans for providing astrometric calibration to the SPHERE users
outside the instrument consortium.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, 3 table
Evolution of protoplanetary disks from their taxonomy in scattered light: spirals, rings, cavities, and shadows
The variety of observed protoplanetary disks in polarimetric light motivates a taxonomical study to constrain their evolution and establish the current framework of this type of observations. We classified 58 disks with available polarimetric observations into six major categories (Ring, Spiral, Giant, Rim, Faint, and Small disks) based on their appearance in scattered light. We re-calculated the stellar and disk properties from the newly available GAIA DR2 and related these properties with the disk categories. More than a half of our sample shows disk sub-structures. For the remaining sources, the absence of detected features is due to their faintness, to their small size, or to the disk geometry. Faint disks are typically found around young stars and typically host no cavity. There is a possible dichotomy in the near-IR excess of sources with spiral-disks (high) and ring-disks (low). Like spirals, shadows are associated with a high near-IR excess. If we account for the pre-main sequence evolutionary timescale of stars with different mass, spiral arms are likely associated to old disks. We also found a loose, shallow declining trend for the disk dust mass with time. Protoplanetary disks may form sub-structures like rings very early in their evolution but their detectability in scattered light is limited to relatively old sources (more than 5 Myr) where the recurrently
detected disk cavities allow to illuminate the outer disk. The shallow decrease of disk mass with time might be due to a selection effect, where disks observed thus far in scattered light are typically massive, bright transition disks with longer lifetime than most disks. Our study points toward spirals and shadows being generated by planets of fraction-to-few Jupiter masses that leave their (observed) imprint on both the inner disk near the star and the outer disk cavity.This work has been supported by the project PRININAF 2016 The Cradle of Life - GENESIS-SKA (General Conditions in Early Planetary Systems for the rise of life with SKA). A.G. acknowledges the support by INAF/Frontiera through the "Progetti Premiali" funding scheme of the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research. We acknowledge funding from ANR of France under contract number ANR-16-CE31-0013 (Planet Forming disks). P.P. acknowledges support by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF2-51380.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS 5-26555
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