This thesis concerns a study of the application, and performance optimization, of standard lead-lag compensation techniques to improve the closed loop performance of a focus servo system for an optical data storage device. Only with proper application of these compensation techniques will it be possible to meet the sub-micrometer focus error tolerances while maintaining the stability of the closed loop system. The performance indices used in this optimization study are the Integral of the Squared Error (ISE), the Integral of the Absolute Error (IAE), and the Integral of the Time multiplied by the Absolute Error (ITAE) as defined below, with the error function e(t) being the focus error of the closed loop servo system in response to a step input. ISE= ∫OT e²(t) dt IAE= ∫OT / e(t) / dt ITAE= ∫OT t / e(t) / dt

We present a new velocity-resolved survey of 2.9 mu m spectra of hot H2O and OH gas emission from protoplanetary disks, obtained with the Cryogenic Infrared Echelle Spectrometer at the VLT (R similar to 96,000). With the addition of archival Spitzer-IRS spectra, this is the most comprehensive spectral data set of water vapor emission from disks ever assembled. We provide line fluxes at 2.9-33 mu m that probe from the dust sublimation radius at similar to 0.05 au out to the region of the water snow line. With a combined data set for 55 disks, we find a new correlation between H2O line fluxes and the radius of CO gas emission, as measured in velocity-resolved 4.7 mu m spectra (R-co), which probes molecular gaps in inner disks. We find that H2O emission disappears from 2.9 mu m (hotter water) to 33 mu m (colder water) as R-co increases and expands out to the snow line radius. These results suggest that the infrared water spectrum is a tracer of inside-out water depletion within the snow line. It also helps clarify an unsolved discrepancy between water observations and models by finding that disks around stars of M-star > 1.5M(circle dot) generally have inner gaps with depleted molecular gas content. We measure radial trends in H2O, OH, and CO line fluxes that can be used as benchmarks for models to study the chemical composition and evolution of planet-forming disk regions at 0.05-20 au. We propose that JWST spectroscopy of molecular-gas may be used as a probe of inner disk gas depletion, complementary to the larger gaps and holes detected by direct imaging and by ALMA.

NASA has funded a project called the Hunt for Observable Signatures of Terrestrial Systems (HOSTS) to survey nearby solar type stars to determine the amount of warm zodiacal dust in their habitable zones. The goal is not only to determine the luminosity distribution function but also to know which individual stars have the least amount of zodiacal dust. It is important to have this information for future missions that directly image exoplanets as this dust is the main source of astrophysical noise for them. The HOSTS project utilizes the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI), which consists of two 8.4-m apertures separated by a 14.4-m baseline on Mt. Graham, Arizona. The LBTI operates in a nulling mode in the mid-infrared spectral window (8-13 mu m), in which light from the two telescopes is coherently combined with a 180 degree phase shift between them, producing a dark fringe at the location of the target star. In doing so the starlight is greatly reduced, increasing the contrast, analogous to a coronagraph operating at shorter wavelengths. The LBTI is a unique instrument, having only three warm reflections before the starlight reaches cold mirrors, giving it the best photometric sensitivity of any interferometer operating in the mid-infrared. It also has a superb Adaptive Optics (AO) system giving it Strehl ratios greater than 98% at 10 mu m. In 2014 into early 2015 LBTI was undergoing commissioning. The HOSTS project team passed its Operational Readiness Review (ORR) in April 2015. The team recently published papers on the target sample, modeling of the nulled disk images, and initial results such as the detection of warm dust around eta Corvi. Recently a paper was published on the data pipeline and on-sky performance. An additional paper is in preparation on beta Leo. We will discuss the scientific and programmatic context for the LBTI project, and we will report recent progress, new results, and plans for the science verification phase that started in February 2016, and for the survey.

The Planet Formation Imager (PFI) project aims to provide a strong scientific vision for ground-based optical astronomy beyond the upcoming generation of Extremely Large Telescopes. We make the case that a breakthrough in angular resolution imaging capabilities is required in order to unravel the processes involved in planet formation. PFI will be optimised to provide a complete census of the protoplanet population at all stellocentric radii and over the age range from 0.1 to similar to 100 Myr. Within this age period, planetary systems undergo dramatic changes and the final architecture of planetary systems is determined. Our goal is to study the planetary birth on the natural spatial scale where the material is assembled, which is the "Hill Sphere" of the forming planet, and to characterise the protoplanetary cores by measuring their masses and physical properties. Our science working group has investigated the observational characteristics of these young protoplanets as well as the migration mechanisms that might alter the system architecture. We simulated the imprints that the planets leave in the disk and study how PFI could revolutionise areas ranging from exoplanet to extragalactic science. In this contribution we outline the key science drivers of PFI and discuss the requirements that will guide the technology choices, the site selection, and potential science/technology tradeoffs.

Transition disks, protoplanetary disks with inner clearings, are promising objects in which to directly image forming planets. The high contrast imaging technique of non-redundant masking is well posed to detect planetary mass companions at several to tens of AU in nearby transition disks. We present non-redundant masking observations of the T Cha and LkCa 15 transition disks, both of which host posited sub-stellar mass companions. However, due to a loss of information intrinsic to the technique, observations of extended sources (e.g. scattered light from disks) can be misinterpreted as moving companions. We discuss tests to distinguish between these two scenarios, with applications to the T Cha and LkCa 15 observations. We argue that a static, forward-scattering disk can explain the T Cha data, while LkCa 15 is best explained by multiple orbiting companions.

We have obtained new images of the protoplanetary disk orbiting TW Hya in visible, total intensity light with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), using the newly commissioned BAR5 occulter. These HST/STIS observations achieved an inner working angle of similar to 0."2, or 11.7 au, probing the system at angular radii coincident with recent images of the disk obtained by ALMA and in polarized intensity near-infrared light. By comparing our new STIS images to those taken with STIS in 2000 and with NICMOS in 1998, 2004, and 2005, we demonstrate that TW Hya's azimuthal surface brightness asymmetry moves coherently in position angle. Between 50 au and 141 au we measure a constant angular velocity in the azimuthal brightness asymmetry of 22 degrees.7. 7 yr(-1) in a counterclockwise direction, equivalent to a period of 15.9. yr assuming circular motion. Both the (short) inferred period and lack of radial dependence of the moving shadow pattern are inconsistent with Keplerian rotation at these disk radii. We hypothesize that the asymmetry arises from the fact that the disk interior to 1 au is inclined and precessing owing to a planetary companion, thus partially shadowing the outer disk. Further monitoring of this and other shadows on protoplanetary disks potentially opens a new avenue for indirectly observing the sites of planet formation.

The disk mass is among the most important input parameter for every planet formation model to determine the number and masses of the planets that can form. We present an ALMA 887 mu m survey of the disk population around objects from similar to 2 to 0.03 M-circle dot in the nearby similar to 2 Myr old Chamaeleon I star-forming region. We detect thermal dust emission from 66 out of 93 disks, spatially resolve 34 of them, and identify two disks with large dust cavities of about 45 au in radius. Assuming isothermal and optically thin emission, we convert the 887 mu m flux densities into dust disk masses, hereafter M-dust. We find that the M-dust-M* relation is steeper than linear and of the form M-dust proportional to (M*)(1.3-1.9), where the range in the power-law index reflects two extremes of the possible relation between the average dust temperature and stellar luminosity. By reanalyzing all millimeter data available for nearby regions in a self-consistent way, we show that the 1-3 Myr old regions of Taurus, Lupus, and Chamaeleon. I share the same M-dust-M* relation, while the 10 Myr old Upper. Sco association has a steeper relation. Theoretical models of grain growth, drift, and fragmentation reproduce this trend and suggest that disks are in the fragmentation-limited regime. In this regime millimeter grains will be located closer in around lower-mass stars, a prediction that can be tested with deeper and higher spatial resolution ALMA observations.

Significant X-ray variability and flaring has been observed from Sgr A* but is poorly understood from a theoretical standpoint. We perform general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations that take into account a population of non-thermal electrons with energy distributions and injection rates that are motivated by PIC simulations of magnetic reconnection. We explore the effects of including these non-thermal electrons on the predicted broadband variability of Sgr A* and find that X-ray variability is a generic result of localizing non-thermal electrons to highly magnetized regions, where particles are likely to be accelerated via magnetic reconnection. The proximity of these high-field regions to the event horizon forms a natural connection between IR and X-ray variability and accounts for the rapid timescales associated with the X-ray flares. The qualitative nature of this variability is consistent with observations, producing X-ray flares that are always coincident with IR flares, but not vice versa, i.e., there are a number of IR flares without X-ray counterparts.

We present the discovery of seven new proplyds (i.e., sources surrounded by cometary H alpha emission characteristic of offset ionization fronts (IFs)) in NGC 1977, located about 30' north of the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC) at a distance of similar to 400 pc. Each of these proplyds is situated at projected distances 0.04-0.27 pc from the B1V star 42 Orionis (c Ori), which is the main source of UV photons in the region. In all cases the IFs of the proplyds are clearly pointing toward the common ionizing source, 42 Ori, and six of the seven proplyds clearly show tails pointing away from it. These are the first proplyds to be found around a B star, with previously known examples instead being located around O stars, including those in the ONC around theta(1) Ori C. The radii of the offset IFs in our proplyds are between similar to 200 and 550 au; two objects also contain clearly resolved central sources that we associate with disks of radii 50-70 au. The estimated strength of the FUV radiation field impinging on the proplyds is around 10-30 times less than that incident on the classic proplyds in the ONC. We show that the observed proplyd sizes are however consistent with recent models for FUV photoevaporation in relatively weak FUV radiation fields.

We conduct a multiwavelength continuum variability study of the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548 to investigate the temperature structure of its accretion disk. The 19 overlapping continuum light curves (1158 angstrom to 9157 angstrom) combine simultaneous Hubble Space Telescope, Swift, and ground-based observations over a 180 day period from 2014 January to July. Light-curve variability is interpreted as the reverberation response of the accretion disk to irradiation by a central time-varying point source. Our model yields the disk inclination i = 36 degrees +/- 10 degrees, temperature T-1= (44 +/- 6) x 10(3) K at 1 light day from the black hole, and a temperature-radius slope (T proportional to r(-alpha)) of alpha = 0.99 +/- 0.03. We also infer the driving light curve and find that it correlates poorly with both the hard and soft X-ray light curves, suggesting that the X-rays alone may not drive the ultraviolet and optical variability over the observing period. We also decompose the light curves into bright, faint, and mean accretion-disk spectra. These spectra lie below that expected for a standard blackbody accretion disk accreting at L/L-Edd = 0.1.