Exoplanet Imaging at the LBT

Andy Skemer and the LEECH team Daniel Apai, Oza Apurva Vanessa Bailey, Beth Biller, Mickael Bonnefoy, Wolfgang Brander, Esther Buenzli, Laird Close, Justin

Crepp, Denis Defrere, Silvano Desidera, Josh Eisner, Simone Esposito, Jonathan Fortney, Thomas Henning, Phil Hinz, Karl-Heinze Hofmann, Jaron Leisenring, Jared Males, Rafael Milan-Gabet, Katie Morzinski, Ilaria Pascucci, Jenny Patience, George

Rieke, Dieter Schertl, Josh Schlieder, Mike Skrutskie, Kate Su, Amali Vaz, Gerd Weigelt, Chick Woodward, Neil Zimmerman

LBT AO: State of the Art

Esposito et al. 2010

80 % Strehl ratio at H-band

Skemer et al. 2012

12 magnitudes of contrast at 0.25”

1. High Strehl ratio

2. World-class contrast

3. Good performance on fainter stars

4. Works over wide wavelength range

Pushing to Longer Wavelengths

Skemer et al. 2014

LBT vs. Other Telescopes at L’

LEECH: LBTI Exozodi Exoplanet Common Hunt

Skemer et al. 2013

Median A-Star Contrast

Survey underway with 12 nights/semester from LEECH partners. 50 stars observed so far.

The Effect of Formation Initial Conditions

Fortney et al. 2008; Marley et al. 2007

…another reason to search for planets around older stars at longer wavelengths

Hot-Start

Cold-Start

Planet Characterization: Pushing to Longer Wavelengths

Skemer et al. 2014

Figure'2:'LEECH'observations'of'HR'8799'(left)'and'Kappa'And'(right).''These'are'the'most'sensitive'observations'taken'of'each'system.''No'planet'is'visible'interior'to'the'known'planets.'

Characterizing%the%Atmospheres%of%Known%Exoplanets:%

Connecting%the%Presence%of%Debris%Disks%with%Exoplanets:%

Planets vs. Brown Dwarfs

Skemer et al. 2013

HR 8799: L-Dwarf Exoplanets at JWST Wavelengths

3.3μm

3.8μm

L-Dwarf Exoplanets at JWST Wavelengths

Skemer et al. 2013

L-Dwarf Exoplanets at JWST Wavelengths

Skemer et al. 2013

GJ 504 b: A T-Dwarf Exoplanet at JWST Wavelengths

A T-Dwarf Exoplanet at JWST Wavelengths

Summary

• LBTAO is the first “extreme”-AO system to come online, and the only one to operate at 4 μm, where exoplanets are bright.

• LEECH is a large, multi-institute survey to search for gas-giant planets, which will put the strongest (model-independent) constraints on the frequency of wide-separation planets.

• Current characterization work has produced the first JWST-wavelength SEDs of exoplanets.

Extra

LEECH: LBTI Exozodi Exoplanet Common Hunt

Skemer et al. 2013

Median A-Star Contrast

GPI vs. LBT at H-band

GPI vs. simulation

Brown Dwarfs are Planet Analogs

Mass (jupiters) M dwarfs

L dwarfs

T&Y dwarfs

Models from Baraffe et al. 2003

Figure by Travis Barman

ADI-Angular Differential Imaging (Glenn Schneider, Christian Marois, Mike Liu)

Figure from C. Thalmann

ADI with LMIRCam

ADI with LMIRCam

The LEECH Survey

• Originally conceived as a parallel survey to the exozodi survey, now with partners from most of the LBT consortium.

• Goals are to search for new directly-imaged exoplanets, characterize currently known exoplanets, and connect the presence of exoplanets with debris disks

• Survey underway with 12 nights/semester from LEECH partners. 50 stars observed so far.