Cédric Pereira

PhD Student

Stabilization of Calibration Light Sources for High Accuracy Photometry Instruments

Photometry -- Exoplanets -- Light Sources

Current Research Summary:

Transit spectroscopy and multi-band photometry has been so far conducted using general-purpose, space-based instruments. These measurements however suffer from a high level of systematic error due to issues such as pointing jitter, thermal and opto-mechanical stability, wavelength and photometric calibration, and detector stability. Testing and calibration of high precision photometers for the detection of planetary transits requires a light source which photometric stability must be better than the goal stability of the photometer to be tested.

My project aims to research and develop a device that senses the light source fluctuations and modulates the beam, both in flux and in spectra, to produce a sufficiently stable source, a truly impressive challenge when stabilization levels of few ppm are required over long periods of observation.

Prior Research:

Detect and Characterize Asteroids in Wide-Field Astronomical Images.