The characterization of exozodiacal light emission is both important for the understanding of planetary systems evolution and for the preparation of future space missions aiming to characterize low mass planets in the habitable zone of nearby main sequence stars. The Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI) exozodi survey aims at providing a ten-fold improvement over current state of the art, measuring dust emission levels down to a typical accuracy of similar to 12 zodis per star, for a representative ensemble of similar to 30+ high priority targets. Such measurements promise to yield a final accuracy of about 2 zodis on the median exozodi level of the targets sample. Reaching a 1. measurement uncertainty of 12 zodis per star corresponds to measuring interferometric cancellation ("null") levels, i.e visibilities at the few 100 ppm uncertainty level. We discuss here the challenges posed by making such high accuracy mid-infrared visibility measurements from the ground and present the methodology we developed for achieving current best levels of 500 ppm or so. We also discuss current limitations and plans for enhanced exozodi observations over the next few years at LBTI.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/622531 |
| Date | 04 August 2016 |
| Creators | Mennesson, Bertrand, Defrère, Denis, Nowak, Matthias, Hinz, Philip, Millan-Gabet, Rafael, Absil, Olivier, Bailey, Vanessa, Bryden, Geoffrey, Danchi, William, Kennedy, Grant M., Marion, Lindsay, Roberge, Aki, Serabyn, Eugene, Skemer, Andy J., Stapelfeldt, Karl, Weinberger, Alycia J., Wyatt, Mark |
| Contributors | Univ Arizona, Dept Astron, Steward Observ, Jet Propulsion Lab. (United States), Univ. de Liège (Belgium), LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, UPMC, Univ. Paris Diderot (France), Steward Observatory (United States), California Institute of Technology (United States), Univ. de Liège (Belgium), Steward Observatory (United States), Jet Propulsion Lab. (United States), NASA Goddard Space Flight Ctr. (United States), Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom), Univ. de Liège (Belgium), NASA Goddard Space Flight Ctr. (United States), Jet Propulsion Lab. (United States), Steward Observatory (United States), Jet Propulsion Lab. (United States), Carnegie Institution of Washington (United States), Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom) |
| Publisher | SPIE-INT SOC OPTICAL ENGINEERING |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article |
| Rights | © 2016 SPIE |
| Relation | http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/proceeding.aspx?doi=10.1117/12.2231839 |
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