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Maximum a posteriori planet detection and characterization with a nulling interferometer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2006

Eric Thiébaut
Affiliation:
Jean-Marie Mariotti Center/Centre de Recherches Astronomiques de Lyon, 9, avenue Charles André; F-69561 Saint Genis Laval Cedex, France email: [email protected]
Laurent Mugnier
Affiliation:
Jean-Marie Mariotti Center/Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales, B.P. 72, 92322 Châtillon Cedex, France email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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Nulling interferometers such as Darwin or TPF will require a rather sophisticated data processing in order to perform a reliable planet detection and characterization. We propose a Bayesian method, which follows the maximum a posteriori (MAP) approach, to solve this problem. Our method accounts for the noise statistics and optimally combines the data from a nulling interferometer at all observed wavelengths to perform reliable planet detection. The problem to be solved is however multi-modal. We show how, in practice, the global optimum of the MAP criterion can be found by our method; the latter also provides the most likely spectral energy distributions of all planets. Additionally, we show that a proper regularization allows us to achieve an improved robustness of the detection and could lead to shorter observation times.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
© 2006 International Astronomical Union