Other
Scientific paper
Jan 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21731804w&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #318.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Other
Scientific paper
The detection of scattered light from exoplanets gives direct access to physical conditions and composition of their atmospheres. Currently, most scattered light experiments focus on nearly edge-on, transiting systems. The temporal changes that occur during planetary occultations are used to suppress systematic errors, which would otherwise overwhelm the planetary signal. Linear polarimetry also has the potential to detect scattered light from exoplanets, because the polarization state of light scattered from a planetary atmosphere distinguishes it from both the direct light from the host star and thermal re-radiation from the planet. This scattered flux should be identifiable even in face-on systems, because both degree and position angle of polarization are modulated continuously throughout the orbit. We report on searches for exoplanetary scattered light using the POLISH2 polarimeter on the Lick 3-m telescope. This instrument has recently been upgraded with new detectors and a high-speed data acquisition system, which give a factor of ten improvement in precision with respect to the previous POLISH system (Wiktorowicz 2009). This polarimeter has achieved precision better than one part per million on V < 9 stars, and it is ideally suited for direct detection of close-in exoplanets. This work was supported by a UC Lab Fees Research Grant and UCO/Lick Observatory.
Graham James R.
Wiktorowicz Sloane
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