The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is a high-contrast imaging instrument designed to directly detect and characterize young, Jupiter-mass exoplanets. After six years of operation at Gemini South in Chile, the instrument is being upgraded and relocated to Gemini North in Hawaii as GPI 2.0. GPI helped establish that Jovian-mass planets have a higher occurrence rate at smaller separations, motivating several sub-system upgrades to obtain deeper contrasts (up to 20 times improvement to the current limit), particularly at small inner working angles. This enables access to additional science areas for GPI 2.0, including low-mass stars, young nearby stars, solar system objects, planet formation in disks, and planet variability. The necessary instrumental changes required toenable these new scientific goals are to (i) the adaptive optics system, by replacing the current Shack-Hartmann Wavefront Sensor (WFS) with a pyramid WFS and a custom EMCCD, (ii) the integral field spectrograph, by employing a new set of prisms to enable an additional broadband (Y-K band) low spectral resolution mode, as well as replacing the pupil viewer camera with a faster, lower noise C-RED2 camera (iii) the calibration interferometer, by upgrading the low-order WFS used for internal alignment and on-sky target tracking with a C-RED2 camera and replacing the calibration high-order WFS used for measuring and correcting non-common path aberrations with a self coherent camera, (iv) the apodized-pupil Lyot coronagraph designs and (v) the software, to enable high-efficiency queue operations at Gemini North. GPI 2.0 is expected to go on-sky in early 2024. Here I will present the new scientific goals, the key upgrades, the current status and the latest timeline for operations.
The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is a high contrast imaging instrument designed to directly detect and characterize young Jupiter-mass exoplanets. After six years of operation at Gemini South in Chile, the instrument is being upgraded and moved to Gemini North in Hawaii as GPI 2.0. As part of this upgrade, several improvements will be made to the adaptive optics (AO) system. This includes replacing the current Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor (WFS) with a pyramid wavefront sensor (PWFS) and a custom EMCCD. These changes are expected to increase GPI’s sky coverage by accessing fainter targets, improving corrections on fainter stars and allowing faster and ultra-low latency operations on brighter targets. The PWFS subsystem is being independently built and tested to verify its performance before its integration into the GPI 2.0 instrument. In this paper, we will present the design and pre-integration test plan of the PWFS.
NFIRAOS is the first-light adaptive optics system for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). It features a sub-cooled thermal enclosure (ENCL) operating at -30 degrees Celsius (˚C), which contains all of the opto-mechanics for the system. A unique entrance window system (NWIND) features a pair of windows separated by vacuum to allow light from the telescope to enter NFIRAOS, while precisely controlling the surface temperatures of the window optics to match the internal and external thermal environments of the enclosure. This ensures that convective currents are not created at the glass surfaces, which are both near the focal plane of the system. NWIND uses a set of multiple temperature controlled warm and cold radiative baffles positioned in the vacuum space between the optics to counteract and balance the radiative thermal load between the two optics, which are typically operated at +5˚C and -30˚C. Presented here are the requirements, design, and engineering of the NFIRAOS entrance window.
We present the design of SCALES (Slicer Combined with Array of Lenslets for Exoplanet Spectroscopy) a new 2-5 micron coronagraphic integral field spectrograph under construction for Keck Observatory. SCALES enables low-resolution (R∼50) spectroscopy, as well as medium-resolution (R∼4,000) spectroscopy with the goal of discovering and characterizing cold exoplanets that are brightest in the thermal infrared. Additionally, SCALES has a 12x12” field-of-view imager that will be used for general adaptive optics science at Keck. We present SCALES’s specifications, its science case, its overall design, and simulations of its expected performance. Additionally, we present progress on procuring, fabricating and testing long lead-time components.
GPI is a facility instrument designed for the direct detection and characterization of young Jupiter mass exoplanets. GPI has helped establish that the occurrence rate of Jovian planets peaks near the snow line (~3 AU), and falls off toward larger separations. This motivates an upgrade of GPI to achieve deeper contrasts, especially at small inner working angles, to extend GPI’s operating range to fainter stars, and to broaden its scientific capabilities, all while leveraging its historical success. GPI was packed and shipped in 2022, and is undergoing a major science-driven upgrade. We present the status and purpose of the upgrades including an EMCCD-based pyramid wavefront sensor, broadband low spectral resolution prisms, new apodized-pupil Lyot coronagraph designs, upgrades of the calibration wavefront sensor and increased queue operability. We discuss the expected performance improvements and enhanced science capabilities to be made available in 2024.
After more than six years of successful operation at Gemini South, the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) will be moved to Gemini-North. During this move, the instrument will undergo a series of upgrades. One of these upgrades will be the installation of a new pyramid wavefront sensor (PWFS) with a low noise EMCCD detector that will replace the current Shack-Hartmann WFS. This upgrade is expected to significantly increase the sky coverage of GPI, providing increased level of AO correction and access to fainter targets. The new PWFS will be assembled on a standalone bench that will be aligned and tested independent of the GPI to ensure the required performance is achieved. Once the performance is verified, the completed subassembly will be installed in place of the current WFS hardware during the final integration into the GPI. In this paper, we will present the final design of the new GPI PWFS. Included will be a description of the optical performance simulations completed and their results, and a detailed overview of the opto-mechanical design of the new PWFS bench.
The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is a dedicated high-contrast imaging facility designed for the direct detection and characterization of young Jupiter mass exoplanets. After six yrs of operation at Gemini South, GPI has helped establish that Jovian planets are rare at wide separations, but have higher occurrence rates at small separations. This motivates an upgrade of GPI to achieve deeper contrasts, especially at small inner working angles, while leveraging its current capabilities. GPI has been funded to undergo a major science-driven upgrade as part of a relocation to Gemini North (GN). Gemini plans to remove GPI at the end of 2020A. We present the status of the proposed upgrades to GPI including a EMCCD-based pyramid wavefront sensor, broadband low spectral resolution prisms and new apodized-pupil Lyot coronagraph designs. We discuss the expected performance improvements in the context of GPI 2.0's enhanced science capabilities which are scheduled to be made available at GN in 2022.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.