SPHERE

The consortium to conduct the SPHERE project consists of 12 major european astronomical institutions:

• IPAG: Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble
• LAM: Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille
• LESIA: Laboratoire d’études spatiales et d’instrumentation en astrophysique, Paris
• MPIA: Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg
• INAF: Instituto Nationale di Astrofisica
• INAF-OAPD: Observatorio Astronomico di Padova
• ONERA: The French Aerospace Lab, Paris
• LAGRANGE: Laboratoire Lagrange, Nice
• Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy
• ETH Zurich
• ASTRON: Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy
• Observatoire de Genève
• ESO is also part of the consortium, as well as its primary client.

The consortium is composed of more than 150 people, administrative, technicians, engineers and researchers and is organized as follows::

• Jean-Luc Beuzit (P.I., IPAG)
• Markus Feldt (Co-P.I., MPIA)
• David Mouillet (Project Scientist, IPAG)
• Pascal Puget (Project Manager, IPAG)
• Kjetil Dohlen (System Engineer, LAM)
• François Wildi (AIT Manager, Geneva Observatory).
• Gael Chauvin (GTO coordinator, IPAG)
• Co-Is:
  • Anthony Boccaletti (LESIA),
  • François Ménard (IPAG),
  • Carsten Dominik (UvA),
  • Thomas Henning (MPIA),
  • Hervé Le Coroller (LAM),
  • Hans-Martin Schmid (ETHZ),
  • Massimo Turrato (INAF),
  • Stéphane Udry (Geneva Observatory),
  • Farrhok Vakhili (Lagrange)

The consortium currently operates the guaranteed time of SPHERE, ie 260 nights over 5 years. Guaranteed time is divided into four main scientific programs:

• SHINE (PI: G. Chauvin, S. Desidera): a systematic survey of 200 nights over 5 years dedicated to the research and characterization of exoplanets beyond 10 AU. The results of this survey will bring important observational constraints on the external properties of exoplanetary systems to study their architecture and their formation, but also on the physics of giant planets not heavily irradiated,
• DISK (PI: C. Dominik): a survey dedicated to the study of proto-planetary discs and debris for the study of interactions between planetary formation and circurmstellar disks,
• REFPLANETS (PI: H.-M. Schmid): an ambitious program dedicated to the search for light reflected in the visible of exoplanets around nearby stars,
• OTHERSCIENCE (PI: E. Lagadec): finally a final program dedicated to the study of evolved systems, small bodies and satellites of the solar system and young stars requiring a high angular resolution.

In order to make optimum use of these observations, the SPHERE consortium is organized according to the same scientific theme with four main groups (SHINE, DISK, REFPLANETS and OTHERSCIENCE). The SHINE group is itself divided into four sub-working groups dedicated to: i) selection and prioritization of sources (WP1), ii / observation strategy and reduction and analysis of high contrast data ( WP2), iii / identification and characterization of Automatic Line Back
Planets (WP3) and iv / statistical survey (WP4). For data processing, the consortium relies on the key role of high-contrast data center SPHERE of the Observatory of Sciences of the Universe of Grenoble (SPHERE-DC, PIs: N. Meunier / IPAG Grenoble for the data processing and H. The Coroller / LAM Marseille for the database) It entered into operation in early 2015, when SPHERE entered Paranal.