The HARPS polarimeter

We recently commissioned the polarimetric upgrade of the HARPS spectrograph at ESO's 3.6-m telescope at La Silla, Chile. The HARPS polarimeter is capable of full Stokes spectropolarimetry with large sensitivity and accuracy, taking advantage of the large spectral resolution and stability of HARPS. In this paper we present the instrument design and its polarimetric performance. The first HARPSpol observations show that it can attain a polarimetric sensitivity of ~10^-5 (after addition of many lines) and that no significant instrumental polarization effects are present.Comment: To be published in ASP Conf Series, Solar Polarization Workshop

SPICES: Spectro-Polarimetric Imaging and Characterization of Exoplanetary Systems

SPICES (Spectro-Polarimetric Imaging and Characterization of Exoplanetary Systems) is a five-year M-class mission proposed to ESA Cosmic Vision. Its purpose is to image and characterize long-period extrasolar planets and circumstellar disks in the visible (450 - 900 nm) at a spectral resolution of about 40 using both spectroscopy and polarimetry. By 2020/22, present and near-term instruments will have found several tens of planets that SPICES will be able to observe and study in detail. Equipped with a 1.5 m telescope, SPICES can preferentially access exoplanets located at several AUs (0.5-10 AU) from nearby stars ($<$25 pc) with masses ranging from a few Jupiter masses to Super Earths ($\sim$2 Earth radii, $\sim$10 M$_{\oplus}$) as well as circumstellar disks as faint as a few times the zodiacal light in the Solar System