Development of a new image processing system for direct imaging data of exoplanets

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 21K13961
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 16010:Astronomy-related
• Research Institution: Oita University
• Principal Investigator: Konishi Mihoko 大分大学, 理工学部, 講師 (30780952)
• Project Period (FY): 2021-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 太陽系外惑星 / 画像処理

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Direct imaging is one of the observational methods to get exoplanet properties from the images and spectra, but it is hard to detect faint objects especially near a star. In this study, I focus on the data processing which is applied to the dataset taken by the direct imaging. This study tries to utilize the time information, which is not handled in the previous data processing, in order to improve the detectability of faint objects. I developed programs whose bases were image processing methods used in the data science field, and adapted them to the dataset of the direct imaging. As a result, I found that the new methods had a high possibility to detect faint objects efficiently. However, it was not sufficient to reduce the halo near the star currently. Additional considering will be done to improve it.

Free Research Field

撮像による太陽系外惑星・原始惑星系円盤の性質調査

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究は、データ科学の手法を天文の画像解析に適用し、太陽系外惑星の検出可能性をあげることを目的としている。本分野のデータ処理を専門とする研究者は非常に少ないため、有用な手法が開発できた際は、世界で使用されることが期待される。また、今後TMTなどの超大型望遠鏡が稼働すると第二の地球の探査が始まる。本研究で開発した手法を適用することが可能であるため、次世代の惑星の調査にも貢献できると期待される。