Effects of a star as an extended body in extra-solar planet search

摘要

Starting from the basic principles of geometrical optics we examine two-beam interferometry as a technique to detect a planet in a nearby solar system. We show that it is not possible to image a planet at the position where the destructive interference from the star generates interference minimum. Additionally, we evaluate the first order parameters of such an instrument to show that technology development in the foreseeable future does not support this concept.