We present a new matched-filter algorithm for direct detection of point sources in the immediate vicinity of bright stars. The stellar point-spread function (PSF) is first subtracted using a Karhunen-Love image processing (KLIP) algorithm with angular and spectral differential imaging (ADI and SDI). The KLIP-induced distortion of the astrophysical signal is included in the matched-filter template by computing a forward model of the PSF at every position in the image. To optimize the performance of the algorithm, we conduct extensive planet injection and recovery tests and tune the exoplanet spectra template and KLIP reduction aggressiveness to maximize the signalto- noise ratio (S/N) of the recovered planets. We show that only two spectral templates are necessary to recover any young Jovian exoplanets with minimal S/N loss. We also developed a complete pipeline for the automated detection of point-source candidates, the calculation of receiver operating characteristics (ROC), contrast curves based on. false positives, and completeness contours. We process in a uniform manner more than 330 data sets from the Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey and assess GPI typical sensitivity as a function of the star and the hypothetical companion spectral type. This work allows for the first time a comparison of different detection algorithms at a survey scale accounting for both planet completeness and false-positive rate. We show that the new forward model matched filter allows the detection of 50% fainter objects than a conventional cross-correlation technique with a Gaussian PSF template for the same false-positive rate.

Jouvence of FLUOR (JouFLU) is a major overhaul of the FLUOR (Fiber Linked Unit for Optical Recombination) beam combiner built by the Laboratoire d’études spatiales et d’instrumentation en astrophysique (LESIA) and installed at the CHARA Array. These upgrades improve the precision, observing efficiency, throughput, and integration of FLUOR with the CHARA Array as well as introduce new modes of operation to this high-precision instrument for interferometry. Such high precision observations with FLUOR have provided the first unambiguous detections of hot dust around main sequence stars, showing an unexpectedly dense population of (sub)micrometer dust grains close to their sublimation temperature, 1400 K. Competing models exist to explain the persistence of this dust; some of which suggest that dust production is a punctuated and chaotic process fueled by asteroid collisions and comet infall that would show variability on timescales of a few years. By re-observing stars from the exozodiacal disks survey we have searched for variations in the detected disks. We have found evidence that for some stars the amount of circumstellar flux from these previously detected exozodiacal disks, or exozodis, has varied. The flux from some exozodis has increased, for some the flux has decreased, and for a few the amount has remained constant. These results are intriguing and will be no doubt useful for future modeling of this phenomenon. Furthermore, long-term monitoring is suggested for some of these objects to confirm detections and determine the rate of variation.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an imaging technique to visualize internal structures of the body. Diffusion MRI is an MRI modality that measures overall diffusion effect of molecules in vivo and non-invasively. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is an extended technique of diffusion MRI. The major application of DTI is to measure the location, orientation and anisotropy of fiber tracts in white matter. It enables non-invasive investigation of major neural pathways of human brain, namely tractography. As spatial resolution of MRI is limited, it is possible that there are multiple fiber bundles within the same voxel. However, diffusion tensor model is only capable of resolving a single direction. The goal of this dissertation is to investigate complex anatomical structures using high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) data without any assumption on the parameters. The dissertation starts with a study of the noise distribution of truncated MRI data. The noise is often not an issue in diffusion tensor model. However, in HARDI studies, with many more gradient directions being scanned, the number of repetitions of each gradient direction is often small to restrict total acquisition time, making signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) lower. Fitting complex diffusion models to data with reduced SNR is a major interest of this study. We focus on fitting diffusion models to data using maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method, in which the noise distribution is used to maximize the likelihood. In addition to the parameters being estimated, we use likelihood values for model selection when multiple models are fit to the same data. The advantage of carrying out model selection after fitting the models is that both the quality of data and the quality of fitting results are taken into account. When it comes to tractography, we extend streamline method by using covariance of the estimated parameters to generate probabilistic tracts according to the uncertainty of local tract orientations.

HD 100453AB is a 10 +/- 2 Myr old binary whose protoplanetary disk was recently revealed to host a global two-armed spiral structure. Given the relatively small projected separation of the binary (1.'' 05, or similar to 108 au), gravitational perturbations by the binary seemed to be a likely driving force behind the formation of the spiral arms. However, the orbit of these stars remained poorly understood, which prevented a proper treatment of the dynamical influence of the companion on the disk. We observed HD. 100453AB between 2015 and 2017, utilizing extreme adaptive optics systems on the Very Large Telescope and the Magellan Clay Telescope. We combined the astrometry from these observations with published data to constrain the parameters of the binary's orbit to a = 1.'' 06 +/- 0.'' 09, e = 0.17 +/- 0.07, and i = 32 degrees.5 +/- 6 degrees.5. We utilized publicly available ALMA (CO)-C-12 data to constrain the inclination of the disk, i(disk) similar to 28 degrees, which is relatively coplanar with the orbit of the companion and consistent with previous estimates from scattered light images. Finally, we input these constraints into hydrodynamic and radiative transfer simulations to model the structural evolution of the disk. We find that the spiral structure and truncation of the circumprimary disk in HD 100453 are consistent with a companion-driven origin. Furthermore, we find that the primary star's rotation, its outer disk, and the companion exhibit roughly the same direction of angular momentum, and thus the system likely formed from the same parent body of material.

We present observations of the Herbig Ae star HD 169142 with the VLT/SPHERE instruments InfraRed Dual-band Imager and Spectrograph (IRDIS) (K1K2 and H2H3 bands) and the Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS) (Y, J and H bands). We detect several bright blobs at similar to 180 mas separation from the star, and a faint arc-like structure in the IFS data. Our reference differential imaging (RDI) data analysis also finds a bright ring at the same separation. We show, using a simulation based on polarized light data, that these blobs are actually part of the ring at 180 mas. These results demonstrate that the earlier detections of blobs in the H and K-S bands at these separations in Biller et al. as potential planet/substellar companions are actually tracing a bright ring with a Keplerian motion. Moreover, we detect in the images an additional bright structure at similar to 93 mas separation and position angle of 355 degrees, at a location very close to previous detections. It appears point-like in the YJ and K bands but is more extended in the H band. We also marginally detect an inner ring in the RDI data at similar to 100 mas. Follow-up observations are necessary to confirm the detection and the nature of this source and structure.

We show by numerical simulations a fundamental gain in contrast when combining coherently monochromatic light from two adaptive optics (AO) telescopes instead of using a single stand-alone AO telescope, assuming efficient control and acquisition systems at high speed. A contrast gain map is defined as the normalized point spread functions (PSFs) ratio of a single Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) aperture over the dual Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI) aperture in Fizeau mode. The global gain averaged across the AO-corrected field of view is improved by a factor of 2 in contrast in long exposures and by a factor of 10 in contrast in short exposures (i.e. in exposures, respectively, longer or shorter than the coherence time). The fringed speckle halo in short exposures contains not only high-angular resolution information, as stated by speckle imaging and speckle interferometry, but also high-contrast imaging information. A high-gain zone is further produced in the valleys of the PSF formed by the dark Airy rings and/or the dark fringes. Earth rotation allows us to exploit various areas in the contrast gain map. A huge-contrast gain in narrow zones can be achieved when both a dark fringe and a dark ring overlap on to an exoplanet. Compared to a single 8-m LBT aperture, the 23-m LBTI Fizeau imager can provide a gain in sensitivity (by a factor of 4), a gain in angular resolution (by a factor of 3) and, as well, a gain in raw contrast (by a factor of 2-1000 varying over the AO-corrected field of view).

We show numerical simulations with monochromatic light in the visible for the LBTI Fizeau imager, including opto-dynamical aberrations due here to adaptive optics (AO) errors and to differential piston fluctuations, while other errors have been neglected. The achievable Strehl by the LBTI using two AO is close to the Strehl provided by a single standalone AO system, as long as other differential wavefront errors are mitigated. The LBTI Fizeau imager is primarily limited by the AO performance and by the differential piston/tip-tilt errors. Snapshots retain high-angular resolution and high-contrast imaging information by freezing the fringes against piston errors. Several merit functions have been critically evaluated in order to characterize point spread functions and the modulation transfer functions for high-contrast imaging applications. The LBTI Fizeau mode can provide an image quality suitable for standard science cases (i.e. a Strehl above 70 per cent) by performing both at a time: an AO correction better than approximate to lambda/18RMS for both short and long exposures, and a piston correction better than approximate to lambda/8 RMS for long exposures or simply below the coherence length for short exposures. Such results, which can be applied to any observing wavelength, suggest that AO and piston control at the LBTI would already improve the contrast at near-and mid-infrared wavelengths. Therefore, the LBTI Fizeau imager can be used for high-contrast imaging, providing a high-Strehl regime (by both AO systems), a cophasing mode (by a fringe tracker) and a burst mode (by a fast camera) to record fringed speckles in short exposures.

Photonic technologies off er numerous advantages for astronomical instruments such as spectrographs and interferometers owing to their small footprints and diverse range of functionalities. Operating at the diffraction-limit, it is notoriously difficult to efficiently couple such devices directly with large telescopes. We demonstrate that with careful control of both the non-ideal pupil geometry of a telescope and residual wavefront errors, efficient coupling with single-mode devices can indeed be realised. A fibre injection was built within the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) instrument. Light was coupled into a single-mode fibre operating in the near-IR (J-H bands) which was downstream of the extreme adaptive optics system and the pupil apodising optics. A coupling efficiency of 86% of the theoretical maximum limit was achieved at 1550 nm for a diffraction-limited beam in the laboratory, and was linearly correlated with Strehl ratio. The coupling efficiency was constant to within <30% in the range 1250-1600 nm. Preliminary on-sky data with a Strehl ratio of 60% in the H-band produced a coupling efficiency into a single-mode fibre of similar to 50%, consistent with expectations. The coupling was >40% for 84% of the time and >50% for 41% of the time. The laboratory results allow us to forecast that extreme adaptive optics levels of correction (Strehl ratio >90% in H-band) would allow coupling of >67% (of the order of coupling to multimode fibres currently) while standard levels of wavefront correction (Strehl ratio >20% in H-band) would allow coupling of >18%. For Strehl ratios <20%, few-port photonic lanterns become a superior choice but the signal-to-noise, and pixel availability must be considered. These results illustrate a clear path to efficient on-sky coupling into a single-mode fibre, which could be used to realise modal-noise-free radial velocity machines, very-long-baseline optical/near-IR interferometers and/or simply exploit photonic technologies in future instrument design.

In 2014 February, the System for High contrast And coronography from R to K at VISual bands (SHARK-VIS) Forerunner, a high contrast experimental imager operating at visible wavelengths, was installed at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). Here we report on the first results obtained by recent on-sky tests. These results show the extremely good performance of the LBT Extreme Adaptive Optics (ExAO) system at visible wavelengths, both in terms of spatial resolution and contrast achieved. Similarly to what was done by Amara & Quanz (2012), we used the SHARK-VIS Forerunner data to quantitatively assess the contrast enhancement. This is done by injecting several different synthetic faint objects in the acquired data and applying the angular differential imaging (ADI) technique. A contrast of the order of 5 x 10(-5) is obtained at 630 nm for angular separations from the star larger than 100 mas. These results are discussed in light of the future development of SHARK-VIS and compared to those obtained by other high contrast imagers operating at similar wavelengths.

We present the Vortex Image Processing (VIP) library, a python package dedicated to astronomical high-contrast imaging. Our package relies on the extensive python stack of scientific libraries and aims to provide a flexible framework for high-contrast data and image processing. In this paper, we describe the capabilities of VIP related to processing image sequences acquired using the angular differential imaging (ADI) observing technique. VIP implements functionalities for building high-contrast data processing pipelines, encompassing pre- and post-processing algorithms, potential source. position and flux estimation, and sensitivity curve. generation. Among the reference point-spread. function subtraction techniques for ADI post-processing, VIP includes several flavors of principal component analysis (PCA) based algorithms, such as annular PCA and incremental PCA algorithms capable of processing big datacubes (of several gigabytes) on a computer with limited memory. Also, we present a novel ADI algorithm based on non-negative matrix factorization, which comes from the same family of low-rank matrix approximations as PCA and provides fairly similar results. We showcase the ADI capabilities of the VIP library using a deep sequence on HR 8799 taken with the LBTI/LMIRCam and its recently commissioned L-band vortex coronagraph. Using VIP, we investigated the presence of additional companions around HR 8799 and did not find any significant additional point source beyond the four known planets. VIP is available at http://github. com/vortex-exoplanet/VIP and is accompanied with Jupyter notebook tutorials illustrating the main functionalities of the library.