Description
We present the results of the Gemini Deep Planet Survey, a near-infrared adaptive optics search for giant planets and brown dwarfs around 85 nearby young stars. The observations were obtained with the Altair adaptive optics system at the Gemini North telescope, and angular differential imaging was used to suppress the speckle noise of the central star. Typically, the observations are sensitive to angular separations beyond 0.5" with 5{sigma} contrast sensitivities in magnitude difference at 1.6um of 9.5 at 0.5", 12.9 at 1", 15.0 at 2", and 16.5 at 5". These sensitivities are sufficient to detect planets more massive than 2M_{Jup}_ with a projected separation in the range 40-200AU around a typical target. Second-epoch observations of 48 stars with candidates (out of 54) have confirmed that all candidates are unrelated background stars. A detailed statistical analysis of the survey results is presented.
|