UC Santa Cruz

I introduce high spatial resolution thermal infrared integral field spectroscopy to the astronomical community. The 2-5 micron sensitivity enables detection and characterization of a wide variety of exoplanets, including exoplanets detected through long-baseline astrometry, radial velocity planets on wide orbits, accreting protoplanets in nearby star-forming regions, and reflected-light planets around the nearest stars. I introduce ALES as the first thermal infrared integral field spectrograph, operating from 2.8–5 microns in multiple, low-resolution spectral modes. I used ALES to deliver the first spatially resolved thermal infrared spectra of the HD 130948BC system. I use the success of the ALES/LBTI thermal infrared integral field spectrograph to motivate the dedicated SCALES/Keck instrument, which vastly improves upon stability and sensitivity of the nascent technology to provide 10-m class diffraction limited thermal infrared low-/med-resolution spectra and imaging. I led the project to develop an end-to-end simulator for SCALES, and have used it to perform a novel information content analysis approach to identifying tolerances for SCALES. I identify the exoplanets detected using the astrometric baseline of Hipparcos, Gaia, and Roman as an age-insensitive sample of "informed" targets to remove the potential risks of non-detections and im prove the efficiency of detection and detailed imaging and spectroscopy of giant exoplanets with SCALES for a broad range of masses, separations, and ages.