Direct Detection of Exoplanets: The Gemini Planet Imager & Fomalhaut b

I will discuss current and future work related to the direction detection of extrasolar
planets, including: 1) a program using the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble
Telescope and; 2) the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI).

1) The 100 Myr-old A star Fomalhaut hosts a belt of dusty material with a morphology that
implies the presence of a shepherding planet. The Hubble Space Telescope has detected a
common proper motion companion, Fomalhaut b, with properties consistent with the predicted
exoplanet. Two epochs of optical data reveal Keplerian orbital motion. The mass of Fomalhaut
b is less than three Jupiter masses: a more massive object would disrupt the dust belt and
would have been detected in deep H and L' images obtained with the Keck and Gemini
Observatories.

2) The Gemini Planet imager is an "extreme" adaptive optics system being designed and built
for the Gemini Observatory. GPI combines precise and accurate wavefront control, diffraction
suppression, and a speckle-suppressing science camera with integral field and polarimetry
capabilities. GPI's primary science goal is the direct detection and characterization of
young, Jovian-mass exoplanets. For systems younger than 2 Gyr exoplanets more massive than 6
Jupiter masses and semimajor axes beyond 10 AU are detected with completeness greater than
50%. GPI will also discover faint debris disks, explore icy moons and minor planets in the
solar system, reveal high dynamic range main-sequence binaries, and study mass loss from
evolved stars.