Angular differential imaging provides a novel way of probing high contrast regions of our universe. Until now, its applications have been primarily localized to searching for exoplanets around nearby stars. This work presents a suite of applications of angular differential imaging from the theoretical underpinning of data reduction, to its use characterizing substellar objects, to a new application looking for the host galaxies of damped Lyman α systems which are usually lost in the glare of ultra-bright quasars along the line of sight. The search for exoplanets utilizes angular differential imaging and relies on complex algorithms to remove residual speckles and artifacts in the images. One such algorithm, the Template Locally Optimized Combination of Images (TLOCI), uses a least-squares method to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio and can be used with variable parameters, such as an input spectral template, matrix inversion method, aggressivity and unsharp mask size. Given the large volume of image sequences that need to be processed in any exoplanet survey, it is important to find a small set of parameters that can maximize detections for any conditions. Rigorous testing of these parameters were done with on-sky images and simulated inserted planets to find the optimal combination of parameters. Overall, a standard matrix inversion, along with two to three input templates, a modest aggressivity of 0.7 and the smallest unsharp mask was found to be the best choice to balance optimal detection. Beyond optimizations, TLOCI has been used in conjunction with angular differential imaging to characterize substellar objects in our local solar neighbourhood. In particular, the star HD 984 was imaged as a part of the Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey. Although previously known to have a substellar companion, new imaging presented here in the H and J bands help further characterize this object. Comparisons with a library of brown dwarf spectral types found a best match to HD 984 B of a type M7±2. Orbital fitting suggests an 18 AU (70 year) orbit, with a 68% confidence interval between 12 and 27 AU. Object magnitude was used to find the luminosity, mass and temperature using DUSTY models. Although angular differential imaging has proven its value in high contrast imaging, it has largely remained in the field of substellar object detection, despite other high contrast regimes in which it could be applied. One potential application is outside the local solar neighbourhood with studies of damped Lyman α systems, which have struggled to identify host galaxies thought to be caused by systems seen in the spectra of bright quasars. Work herein presents the first application of angular differential imaging to finding the host galaxies to damped Lyman α systems. Using ADI we identified three potential systems within 30kpc of the sightline of the quasar and demonstrate the potential for future imaging of galaxies at close separations. In summary, this thesis presents a comprehensive look at multiple aspects of high contrast angular differential imaging. It explores optimizations with a data reduction algorithm, implementations characterizing substellar objects, and new applications imaging galaxies. / Graduate

Strong damped Lyman alpha absorption (DLA) lines seen spectra of distant quasar are believed to arise when the sight line to the quasar goes trough the disc of a galaxy or a proto galaxy. Most of the neutral matter in the universe is contained in these clouds of neutral hydrogen that cause the absorption lines. Hence these DLAs are reservoirs for the formation of stars and galaxies throughout the universe. Despite intensive efforts over more than two decades only few galaxies responsible for the DLAs have been found. The problem is that the galaxies that harbour the neutral clouds are not necessarily bright, and selecting galaxies based on absorption lines could well select different types of galaxies than found in large surveys. If we are to understand how galaxies form out of neutral gas clouds it is essential to locate the galaxies in which DLAs reside. <br><br> This thesis explores the use of integral field spectroscopy (IFS) to observe quasars known to have strong absorption lines in their spectra. IFS allows us to obtain a spectrum at many spatial points close to the quasar, thus providing images and spectroscopy simultaneously. From the imaging part, we can directly identify objects, and from the spectroscopy we can calculate the distances to the objects. When the distance of the object found in emission matches the distance to the object that cause the DLA line, we have identified the absorbing galaxy. <br><br> Using this technique, we have showed that we can successfully recover a few DLA galaxies known previously from the literature. In a survey aimed to increase the number of DLA galaxies we have identified eight new candidate DLA galaxies. The projected distances from the candidates to the quasar sight lines indicate that the DLA galaxies have sizes similar to local disc galaxies. Hence our results suggest that large discs may be present when the universe was just 2 billion years old. We furthermore find no differences between the sizes of the very distant DLA galaxies and those that are not so distant. The large sizes imply that their neutral hydrogen masses are also similar to those in local galaxies, but we argue that the DLA galaxies are not necessarily as luminous as the present day disc galaxies. <br><br> Taking advantage of the three-dimensional view provided by the IFS data, the second part of this thesis investigates extended emission line regions arising in the quasar neighborhood. We find that extended emission line nebulae are common around quasars, and explore the effects that may be the cause. Some quasars are known to be powerful radio emitters while others are not detected at radio wavelengths. We find that significantly larger and brighter emission line nebulae are found around the quasars which have the brightest radio emission, and in particular those that have large radio jets. The existence of the nebulae can be interpreted as an interaction of the radio jet with the surrounding medium, but we can not rule out a scenario where there are density or temperature differences in the surrounding environment. Only for the brightest object, where additional velocity information can be derived from the IFS data, can we argue for an interaction. <br><br> In conclusion the use of IFS to search for faint emission lines, both from point sources and extended nebulae provides exciting new results within the scientific areas studied here. / Man glaubt, daß starke gedämpfte Lyman alpha Absorptionslinien (damped Lyman alpha lines, DLA lines) in den Spektren entfernter Quasare entstehen, wenn die Sichtlinie zu dem Quasar durch eine Galaxie oder eine Proto-Galaxie geht. Die meiste neutrale Materie des Universums ist in diesen Wolken aus neutralem Wasserstoff enthalten, die die Absorptionslinien verursachen. Daher sind diese DLAs Reservoire für die Bildung von Sternen und Galaxien im gesamten Universum. Trotz intensiver Anstrengungen seit mehr als zwei Jahrzehnten konnten nur wenige Galaxien gefunden werden, die für DLAs verantwortlich sind. Das Problem ist, daß die Galaxien, die die neutralen Wolken beherbergen, nicht notwendigerweise hell sind, und Galaxien basierend auf Absorptionslinien zu selektieren, könnte leicht andere Typen von Galaxien selektieren, als diejenigen, die in großen Durchmusterungen gefunden werden. Wenn wir verstehen wollen wie Galaxien aus neutralen Gaswolken entstehen, ist es entscheidend, die Galaxien ausfindig zu machen, in denen DLAs liegen. <br><br> Diese Doktorarbeit erforscht die Nutzung der Ganzfeldspektroskopie (integral field spectroscopy, IFS), um Quasare zu beobachten, die bekanntermaßen starke Absorptionslinien in ihren Spektren haben. IFS erlaubt uns, ein Spektrum an vielen räumlichen Punkten nahe des Quasars zu erhalten, somit Bilder und Spekroskopie gleichzeitig zu liefern. Aus den Bildern können wir direkt Objekte identifizieren und aus der Spektroskopie können wir die Entfernungen zu den Objekten berechnen. Wenn die Entfernung zum gefundenen Objekt mit der Entfernung zu einer DLA-Linie übereinstimmt, dann haben wir die absorbierende Galaxie gefunden. <br><br> Diese Methode anwendend, können wir zeigen, daß wir erfolgreich einige wenige schon aus der Literatur bekannte DLA-Galaxien wiederentdecken können. In einer auf Erhöhung der Zahl von DLA-Galaxien abzielenden Duchmusterung haben wir acht neue DLA-Galaxienkandidaten identifiziert. Die projizierten Entfernungen von den Kandidaten zu den Quasarsichtlinien lassen erkennen, daß die DLA-Galaxien ähnliche Größen haben, wie nahe Scheibengalaxien. Daher lassen unsere Resultate darauf schließen, daß es große Scheibengalaxien gegeben haben könnte, als das Universum gerade zwei Milliarden Jahre alt war. Außerdem finden wir keine Unterschiede zwischen den Größen der sehr weit entfernten DLA-Galaxien und jenen, die nicht so weit entfernt sind. Die Größen implizieren, daß ihre Massen gebunden in neutralem Wasserstoff auch ähnlich sind zu jenen in lokalen Galaxien, aber wir vertreten die Ansicht, daß DLA-Galaxien nicht notwendigerweise so leuchtkräftig sind wie heutige Scheibengalaxien. <br><br> Den dreidimensionalen Blick ermöglicht durch die IFS-Daten ausnutzend, untersucht der zweite Teil dieser Doktorarbeit ausgedehnte Emissionslinienregionen, die in der Nachbarschaft der Quasare entstehen. Wir finden heraus, daß ausgedehnte Emissionsliniennebel um Quasare häufig sind und erforschen die ihnen zugrundeliegenden Effekte. Einige Quasare sind bekannte starke Radioquellen, während andere nicht im Radiobereich entdeckt werden. Wir zeigen, daß bedeutend größere und hellere Emissionsliniennebel um Quasare gefunden werden, welche die stärkste Radioemission, insbesondere große Radiojets, aufweisen. Die Existenz der Nebel kann interpretiert werden als eine Wechselwirkung der Radiojets mit dem umgebenden Medium, aber wir können nicht ausschließen, daß es Dichte- oder Temperaturunterschiede in der Umgebung gibt. Nur für die hellsten Objekte, für die zusätzliche Geschwindigkeitsinformation aus den IFS-Daten abgeleitet werden kann, vertreten wir die Ansicht der Wechselwirkung. <br><br> Die Nutzung der IFS bei der Suche nach schwachen Emissionslinien von Punktquellen wie auch ausgedehnten Nebeln bietet spannende neue Ergebnisse in den hier studierten wissenschaftlichen Gebieten.

Absorption profiles are found in the observed spectra from quasars, and the most prominent of these are the Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers (DLAs). They are caused by large collections of neutral hydrogen (HI) gas, which are thought to be housed in galaxies that lie along the line-of-sight to quasars. HI gas associated with DLAs contains most of the HI gas in the Universe during 2 < z < 5, and hence details about DLAs are important for understanding the history of star formation, as well as the formation and evolution of galaxies. Wyithe (2008) proposed a method of determining the characteristic mass of dark matter haloes that host DLAs. This involves generating an analytic power spectrum of the fluctuations in 21cm brightness temperature caused by the HI gas in the Universe. Calculating this analytic 21cm power spectrum requires a formalism for the HI mass weighted clustering bias of DLAs on both large and small scales. We include this DLA clustering bias by firstly generating an analytic galaxy power spectrum using the halo model of Peacock & Smith (2000), as well as including the occupation of haloes by galaxies -- using the Halo Occupation Distribution (HOD) weighting of Peacock (2003). This weighting is then adapted to account for the occupation of haloes by HI gas. / We then fit the analytic 21cm power spectrum generated using this formalism to a simulated 21cm power spectrum, with the characteristic mass of DLA host haloes being used as a fitting parameter. The DLA host halo mass is in turn dependent upon two parameters in our model: the minimum mass of haloes M_{min} included in our formalism, and the HI weighting index alpha_{HI}. The neutral hydrogen fraction is another parameter, which we can choose to be the same as that from our simulation volume. If we also choose a value for alpha_{HI} that is motivated by analysis of the dark matter and HI gas content of the haloes in the simulation, then we are able to fit the 21cm power spectrum at both large and small scales, with an M_{min} that is the same or similar to the lowest mass in the simulation's halo catalogue. This in turn gives a similar value for the DLA host halo mass that is known to be the case in the simulation. This demonstrates the viability of the Wyithe (2008) method for determining the DLA host halo mass using observations of 21cm fluctuations. However, degeneracies in the free parameters of our analytic formalism would hinder an accurate determination of the DLA host halo mass from actual future observations. This is due to the fact that the real space, spherically averaged 21cm power spectrum is used throughout this thesis. However, extending our analytic formalism to the redshift space, angular-dependent 21cm power spectrum should be capable of breaking the degeneracy between DLA host halo mass and neutral hydrogen fraction.