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In practice, technologies attempting to recover direct images of extra-solar planets run into noise floors governed by systematics (most notably, quasi-static speckles) before reaching fundamental limits (such as photon noise). To enhance detection reach to higher contrasts, discrimination by exploiting distinctive planetary signatures have been proposed. Here we explore a novel possibility: detecting exoplanets around bright variable stars based on the variability-phase difference between the speckles and the reflected light from the planet. Hot variable stars (the kind most favorable to this idea) host relatively distant Habitable Zones, which will allow a considerable phase delay to be displayed by planet in reflection. We have carried out a systematic series of simulations and analysis to explore the potential for this method. We show that this technique could improve contrast reach of an extreme-AO imagery by a factor of 5-10 against speckle noise.
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Mutian Wang, Peter Tuthill, Barnaby Norris, "Finding exoplanets in the habitable zone with light echoes," Proc. SPIE 11448, Adaptive Optics Systems VII, 114484V (13 December 2020); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2559345