This award supports the Gemini Planet Imaging (GPI) exoplanet survey, which is an extensive observational project using a new instrument to obtain images and spectra of extrasolar planets. The data will be used to directly image Jovian planets (Jupiter-mass gas giants) around other stars, and measure the chemical composition of the planets? atmospheres. The results will be used to test models of planet formation and evolution. The funding will train and mentor two graduate students and a postdoctoral scholar in research. The team will also carry out public outreach with the SETI Institute.
The GPI instrument is a new coronagraphic integral field unit commissioned at the Gemini Observatory. It is capable of detecting and spectroscopically characterizing young Jovian planets reaching 10 million times fainter than their parent star at separations as close as 0.2 arcseconds. Direct imaging of planets will yield information on planets typically not, or rarely accessible, by other methods (such as radial velocity measurements, transit observations, and gravitational microlensing). The investigators will target over 600 young stars of spectral type A-M, and use the data to test formation paths of giant planets, dynamical evolution constraints and explore the bridge between giant planets and brown dwarfs.
