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D.E. Potter (Institute for Astronomy)
The high dynamic range performance of a Wollaston prism dual adaptive optics imaging polarimeter experiment is presented. This polarimeter is incorporated into the 36 element curvature AO system, Hokupa'a, currently mounted on the Gemini North 8 meter telescope. The instrument sensitivity is translated into the range of circumstellar disks detectable by the system through a numerical Mie scattering algolrithm. I will discuss the advantages of dual imaging polarimetry with AO for imaging circumstellar disks compared to thermal imaging and other techniques. To illustrate the effectiveness of this technique, I present a new circumstellar disk imaged around the star LkH\alpha 262, a young star that is associated with the MBM-12 molecular cloud.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: potter@ifa.hawaii.edu