High Resolution Infrared Imagery

The first two accepted papers based on observations with the Near-Infrared Coronagraphic Imager (NICI) at Gemini South illustrate the instrument's potential diverse uses. The papers include discoveries of several previously unknown companions in binary star systems as well as the study of the age distributions of stars in the outer regions of the galaxy M83.

Primarily envisioned as a planet-hunting "machine," NICI combines an 85-element curvature adaptive optics (AO) system, a Lyot coronagraph, and a dual-channel infrared imager into a single instrument. The high image quality provided by the AO system together with the coronagraph's light-suppression capability optimize NICI for the detection of extremely faint companions to bright stars. To that end, NICI is currently being used in an extensive campaign to search about 300 nearby stars for planetary-mass companions. However, NICI is also useful for many other applications requiring high-resolution or high-contrast imaging. These first papers present the results of two programs executed in the classical observing mode by visiting observers.…