(Proposal ID) S16B-104

(PI) Currie, Thayne

(Proposal Title)
SPS: The SCExAO Pathfinder Survey for Young Exoplanets and Debris disks II

(Abstract)
The SCExAO team proposes the S16B allocation for the SCExAO Pathfinder Survey 
(SPS) to search for and characterize young exoplanets and disks, a precursor 
to SCExAO/CHARIS and MKIDS observations. We 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 2)  young (t = 5-100 Myr) IRAS and WISE-detected early-type 
debris disk candidates, similar to many systems with 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, and 3) search for resolved 
disks and young planets around {IRAS/WISE}-detected stars that currently lack 
deep published imaging. Our program, when fully executed, will yield at least 
4, likely 5 or more, publications exploring benchmark disks/imaged planets on 
never before seen scales and will likely result in new disk/planet 
discoveries. This program provides {necessary and critical} support to a 
Subaru Project Fellow initiative and U. Tokyo graduate student thesis work.