@inproceedings{f67281feddca4679875c4951bb07ab42,
title = "The HOSTS survey for exo-zodiacal dust: Preliminary results and future prospects",
abstract = "The presence of large amounts of dust in the habitable zones of nearby stars is a significant obstacle for future exo-Earth imaging missions. We executed the HOSTS (Hunt for Observable Signatures of Terrestrial Systems) survey to determine the typical amount of such exozodiacal dust around a sample of nearby main sequence stars. The majority of the data have been analyzed and we present here an update of our ongoing work. Nulling interferometry in N band was used to suppress the bright stellar light and to detect faint, extended circumstellar dust emission. We present an overview of the latest results from our ongoing work. We find seven new N band excesses in addition to the high confidence confirmation of three that were previously known. We find the first detections around Sun-like stars and around stars without previously known circumstellar dust. Our overall detection rate is 23%. The inferred occurrence rate is comparable for early type and Sun-like stars, but decreases from 71+11 -20% for stars with previously detected mid- to far-infrared excess to 11+9 -4% for stars without such excess, confirming earlier results at high confidence. For completed observations on individual stars, our sensitivity is five to ten times better than previous results. Assuming a lognormal luminosity function of the dust, we find upper limits on the median dust level around all stars without previously known mid to far infrared excess of 11.5 zodis at 95% confidence level. The corresponding upper limit for Sun-like stars is 16 zodis. An LBTI vetted target list of Sun-like stars for exo-Earth imaging would have a corresponding limit of 7.5 zodis. We provide important new insights into the occurrence rate and typical levels of habitable zone dust around main sequence stars. Exploiting the full range of capabilities of the LBTI provides a critical opportunity for the detailed characterization of a sample of exozodiacal dust disks to understand the origin, distribution, and properties of the dust.",
keywords = "Exo-Earth imaging, Exo-zodiacal dust, Habitable zone, High contrast imaging, Interferometry, Mid-infrared",
author = "S. Ertel and Kennedy, {G. M.} and D. Defr{\`e}re and P. Hinz and Shannon, {A. B.} and B. Mennesson and Danchi, {W. C.} and C. Gelino and Hill, {J. M.} and Hoffman, {W. F.} and G. Rieke and E. Spalding and Stone, {J. M.} and A. Vaz and Weinberger, {A. J.} and P. Willems and O. Absil and P. Arbo and Bailey, {V. P.} and C. Beichman and G. Bryden and Downey, {E. C.} and O. Durney and S. Esposito and A. Gaspar and P. Grenz and Haniff, {C. A.} and Leisenring, {J. M.} and L. Marion and McMahon, {T. J.} and R. Millan-Gabet and M. Montoya and Morzinski, {K. M.} and E. Pinna and J. Power and A. Puglisi and A. Roberge and E. Serabyn and Skemer, {A. J.} and K. Stapelfeldt and Su, {K. Y.L.} and V. Vaitheeswaran and Wyatt, {M. C.}",
note = "Funding Information: The Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as part of its Exoplanet Exploration Program. The LBT is an international collaboration among institutions in the United States, Italy, and Germany. LBT Corporation partners are: The University of Arizona on behalf of the Arizona university system; Instituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Italy; LBT Beteiligungsgesellschaft, Germany, representing the Max-Planck Society, the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, and Heidelberg University; The Ohio State University, and The Research Corporation, on behalf of The University of Notre Dame, University of Minnesota and University of Virginia. This research has made extensive use of the SIMBAD database [56] and the VizieR catalogue access tool [57], both operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France, of Python, including the NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib [58], and Astorpy [59] libraries, and of NASA{\textquoteright}s Astrophysics Data System Bibliographic Services. GMK is supported by the Royal Society as a Royal Society University Research Fellow. AS is partially supported by funding from the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds. The Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds is supported by the Pennsylvania State University, the Eberly College of Science, and the Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium. JMS is supported by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF2-51398.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} COPYRIGHT SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.; Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave ; Conference date: 10-06-2018 Through 15-06-2018",
year = "2018",
doi = "10.1117/12.2313685",
language = "English (US)",
isbn = "9781510619494",
series = "Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering",
publisher = "SPIE",
editor = "Fazio, {Giovanni G.} and MacEwen, {Howard A.} and Makenzie Lystrup",
booktitle = "Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018",
}