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The Subaru Seminar is usually held in Room 104 of the Hilo Base Facility, adjacent to the main lobby. Everyone is welcome to attend. If you are interested in giving a seminar, please contact Subaru seminar organizers (Tae-Soo Pyo, Sherry Yeh, Nagayoshi Ohashi) by email : sseminar_at_subaru.naoj.org (please change"_at" to @).

February 16, Tuesday, 11:00 am in 104

" Probing Planetary Formation and the Late Stages of Stellar Evolution at the Angular Resolution Frontier "

Michael Ireland

(Australian National University)


Direct detection of the infrared radiation from exoplanets and their environment falls in an angular resolution niche: the scale of our solar system in the nearest star forming regions falls right at the diffraction-limit of the world's largest telescopes. I will show some highlights from the techniques of kernel-phase and aperture-mask interferometry that are currently the world-leaders in infrared imaging at the diffraction-limit for typical adaptive optics Strehl ratios. At the youngest ages, I will show how radiation from planetary systems in the process of formation can be directly imaged, focusing on multi-epoch monitoring of the resolved emission seen within the disk gap of LkCa 15, interpreted as a planet - LkCa15b. Recent results from the Magellan AO team have discovered H-alpha from an accretion shock on LkCa15b, and I will describe how a new module on Subaru's SCExAO, RHEA, could soon provide a similar capability here. RHEA will also be able to significantly extend the reach of 8m class telescopes in watching the final stages of evolution of giant stars, by combining very high (8 milli-arcsec) spatial resolution and spectral resolution (R~60,000). Finally, I will briefly mention the internationally collaborative Planet Formation Imager project as a long-term vision for imaging exoplanet birth.


Seminars are also held at JAC, CFHT, and IfA.



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