A New Assessment of the Candidate Protoplanets Orbiting LkCa 15 Using SCExAO/CHARIS High-Contrast Direct Spectroscopy
Abstract
LkCa 15 hosts three candidate protoplanets (LkCa 15 bcd) identified from sparse aperture masking and H-alpha differential imaging. However, LkCa 15's circumstellar environment is extremely complex, including a bright crescent-shaped outer disk wall and inner disk detected via polarimetry. Direct imaging and spectroscopy at high Strehl ratios could more decisively determine the nature of these candidates. Using SCExAO/CHARIS, we present the first bona fide extreme AO observations of LkCa 15, covering wavelengths where both these candidates and the disk have been identified. We use radiative transfer modeling for the inner disk and forward-modeling to understand how planets and disk signals propagate through our data. Based on these results, we reassess the planet inventory and inner disk morphology of LkCa 15.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #233
- Pub Date:
- January 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AAS...23314037W