Engineering the Search for New Worlds

Direct imaging of exoplanets has rapidly matured and is now providing invaluable data that is highly complementary to other planet detection and characterization techniques. In this talk, I will discuss two direct imaging projects currently being worked on at the Space Imaging and Optical Systems Lab at Cornell University: the upgrade of the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI 2.0), and the development of the Coronagraphic Instrument (CGI) technology demonstration mission for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.   GPI, a facility instrument at the Gemini South observatory, is one of the world's most advanced extreme adaptive optics coronagraphy systems, capable of spectral-polarimetric imaging of young, giant, self-luminous planets in the near-IR.  Over the next two years, a large, multidisciplinary group at institutions spanning the US and Canada will work to make GPI even more sensitive and efficient, after which it will be re-commissioned at Gemini North as GPI 2.0.  The Roman CGI will be the first dedicated exoplanet coronagraph on a space mission, scheduled to launch in the mid-2020s.  It will initially operate as a technology demonstration, which, if successful, will be followed by a participating scientist program.  I will discuss my group's work on the modeling and optimization of exoplanet imaging surveys and our advances in the control of autonomous optical systems.