Anne-Marie Lagrange

Host institution: National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)

Laboratory: Institut NEEL

Call for Projects: Advanced (PE9)

Project name: COBREX – COupling data and techniques for BReakthroughs in EXoplanetary systems exploration

Amount:  2.49 M€

Description:

Exoplanetology has become a major topic in astronomy over the last 30 years. New observing capabilities and modelling have revolutionised the understanding of how planetary systems form and evolve. Yet, the 5-20 au region, where the giant planets formed by accretion of gas on to a solid core are supposed to form predominantly, remains barely explored due to instrumental limitations. GAIA and the E-ELT instruments will be well suited to explore planetary systems at this scale. However, I believe that exploring this region is possible right now, at a small cost, with the use of recent innovative signal processing developments applied to current High Contrast Imaging (HCI) data and/or the use of high-performance, AO-fed medium/high resolution spectrographs. With COBREX, I want to apply such new data processing techniques on the largest library of SPHERE and GPI HCI data to gain at least one order of magnitude (hence a gain of ~3 in mass/separation) on current planet and disk detection limits in the 5-20 au region. This will allow witnessing, for the first time, analogues of our Solar System Giants at early ages, and constraining the distribution of GPs in the 5-20 au. Combining in different ways various data (HCI, GAIA, RV) will allow exploring the demography of young giant planets at all separations. Then, I want to couple HCI with medium/high resolution spectroscopy, to find and study planet properties into exquisite details, and investigate in an unprecedented way the link between disks and planets. Finally, I wish to explore the possibility of imaging remote magmatic super-Earths in the near future thanks to such improvements.