High-Resolution Optical Speckle Imaging: Exoplanet Characterization Today and Tomorrow

For nearly 15 years, the technique of speckle imaging has been playing a vital role in exoplanet science. Helping to validate and characterize exoplanets and their host stars, resident speckle instruments exist on the twin Gemini 8-m telescopes and are likely to be a great first light instrument for the 30-m class telescopes coming along. This talk will highlight the use speckle imaging in exoplanet science to date, covering many scientific discoveries and revealing strong biases in target selection, occurrence rates, Eta-Earth predictions, formation, and host star properties. I addition, a new generation of speckle imaging instruments using scene-based wavefront sensors will increase the versatility of such high-resolution images in terms of astrophysical information and contrast level. Such an instrument placed on a 30-m telescope will allow direct optical imaging of some dozens of close-in, warm exoplanets.