(Proposal ID) S16A-086

(PI) Currie, Thayne

(Proposal Title)
The SCExAO Pathfinder Survey for Young Exoplanets and Debris Disks

(Abstract)
We propose the SCExAO Pathfinder Survey (SPS) to search for and characterize 
young exoplanets and disks, a precursor to later SCExAO/CHARIS and MKIDS 
observations. Our observations combine SCExAO's now proven extreme-AO 
capability with VAMPIRES optical interferometry to study planets and disks 
on solar system-like scales. Our targets include 1) known resolved debris 
disks and imaged planets and 2)  young (t = 5-100 Myr) IRAS and WISE-detected 
early-type debris disk candidates, similar to many imaged disks/planets. 
We will 1) better constrain the properties of {known} debris disks at solar 
system-like scales, 2) resolve and obtain optical polarimetric data for the 
brightest disks at asteroid belt-like separations, 3) confirm as planets some 
candidate point sources recently identified around our targets, and 4) search 
for resolved disks and young planets around {IRAS/WISE}-detected stars that 
currently lack deep published imaging. Our data are guaranteed to yield 
at least five publications exploring benchmark debris disks/imaged planets 
on never before seen scales and will likely result in new disk/planet 
discoveries.