Main targets of the Extrasolar Planet Detection Project Office are planets around stars which are younger than the Sun and places where stars and planets are born (the star-forming region). Younger celestial objects are brighter than older objects, and the contrast of brightness with primary star is small. In order to take this advantage, it is useful to observe them at near infrared whose wavelengths are a little longer than the visible light. Also, for exploring Earth-like planets around low-mass stars near the Sun, radial velocity (Doppler effect) at infrared is the most appropriate way. Moreover, polarization observations in infrared are available to not only star-planet forming but also various fields. This project office develops observational instruments working at near infrared, and promote observations with using these. Each instrument has characteristics suited for the telescopes to which the instruments are installed. We introduce a brief summary of these here.
This is the main instrument of SEEDS (Strategic Explorations of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru Telescope) project mounted on the Subaru Telescope. This instrument (coronagraph) is specialized to the ability (high contrast) of detecting dark object near very bright host star for taking direct image of disk around the star (circumstellar disk).
This is the near infrared high dispersion spectrograph that will be mounted on the Subaru Telescope. It is developing instrument for the purpose of investigating Earth-like mass planets around star (M type star) which is less than the solar mass with combining optical frequency comb that is for measuring wavelength ultra-precision.
This is the near infrared three color polarization imaging instrument mounted on the 1.4-m telescope IRSF in South Africa. It observes particular light "polarization" from celestial object, and it is possible to get information about structure of magnetic field in star-forming region and related to structure of circumstellar.
This is the Earth-like planets imaging/spectrograph which is now considering for next-generation ultra large telescope TMT that aims to see the first light in 2021. The most important target of this instrument would be Earth-like planets near the Sun that is found by IRD and etc..
This is 1.4-m telescope IRSF in
South Africa which SIRPOL is mounted.