HIGH CONTRAST IMAGING WITH HST/STIS: THE CURRENT POTENTIAL FOR PLANET FINDING

摘要

The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on the Hubble Space Telescope has a simple white-light coronagraph which has been used to image cir-cumstellar envelopes, jets, disks, and to detect low-mass companions associated with pre-Main Sequence stars and the more IR-luminous debris disks. STIS has also been used to image near the millimeter bright knot associated with the candidate planetary system e Eri. The STIS dataset has resulted in detections of circumstellar nebulosity with surface bright-ess ranging from 110~(-3.5) to 10~(-6.5) per HST resolution element relative to the occulted star, and limiting contrasts for nebulosity and point sources associated with ε Eri down to 10~(9.5) per HST resolution element relative to the star. These data constitute some of the deepest coronagraphic imagery currently available for systems which will be of interest to future planet searches by Darwin/ TPF. We summarize the lessons learned and the implications for the next generation of planet search programs.