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The Gemini NICI Planet-Finding Campaign: The Companion Detection Pipeline

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Zahed Wahhaj, Michael C. Liu, Beth A. Biller, Eric L. Nielsen, Laird M. Close, Thomas L. Hayward, Markus Hartung, Mark Chun
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Christ Ftaclas, Douglas W. Toomey

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Submitted 15 Oct 2013

abstract compiled · 2026-09-23 · no language-model review

The authors' main claim We compare our pipeline to the performance of the LOCI algorithm for NICI data and do not find significant improvement with LOCI.

how it is stated · asserted 1.00 read the record →

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arXiv ID1310.4172 (version 3)
Pith IDOXI5PX4P, Pith's permanent record of this paper and its review
CitationBeth A. Biller, Christ Ftaclas, Douglas W. Toomey, Eric L. Nielsen, Laird M. Close, Mark Chun, Markus Hartung, Michael C. Liu, Thomas L. Hayward, Zahed Wahhaj. "The Gemini NICI Planet-Finding Campaign: The Companion Detection Pipeline." arXiv:1310.4172 (2013). https://pith.science/paper/OXI5PX4P
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Compiled by classifier-1.13-20260917 via OpenRouter, question bank abstract-p1-20260923, 2026-09-23: 1 request, 5,066 input tokens, $0.0002 reported.

What the abstract itself states, as probabilities: claims first 0.07 · states limitation 0.22 · human participants 0.02 · controlled comparison 0.78 · randomized assignment 0.01 · states quantitative result 0.99 · compares with prior results 0.96 · mentions code or data availability 0.03.

The abstract, sentence by sentence

arXiv listing abstract v3. Results and the main claim are underlined; .

We present the high-contrast image processing techniques used by the Gemini NICI Planet-Finding Campaign to detect faint companions to bright stars. NICI (Near Infrared Coronagraphic Imager) is an adaptive optics instrument installed on the 8-m Gemini South telescope, capable of angular and spectral difference imaging and specifically designed to image exoplanets. The Campaign data pipeline achieves median contrasts of 12.6 magnitudes at 0.5" and 14.4 magnitudes at 1" separation, for a sample of 45 stars (V= 4.3-13.9 mag) from the early phase of the Campaign. We also present a novel approach to calculating contrast curves for companion detection based on 95% completeness in the recovery of artificial companions injected into the raw data, while accounting for the false-positive rate. We use this technique to select the image processing algorithms that are more successful at recovering faint simulated point sources. We compare our pipeline to the performance of the LOCI algorithm for NICI data and do not find significant improvement with LOCI.

background contribution method result interpretation main claim

What the classifier reports for each sentence. The number is the probability it gave the label.
#sentencerolethe authors' own workstates the main conclusionstrength
s0 We present the high-contrast image processing techniques used by the Gemini NICI Planet-Finding Campaign to detect faint companions to bright stars. contribution 1.00 0.90 0.11 asserted 0.99
s1 NICI (Near Infrared Coronagraphic Imager) is an adaptive optics instrument installed on the 8-m Gemini South telescope, capable of angular and spectral difference imaging and specifically designed to image exoplanets. background 0.86 0.09 0.03 asserted 1.00
s2 The Campaign data pipeline achieves median contrasts of 12.6 magnitudes at 0.5" and 14.4 magnitudes at 1" separation, for a sample of 45 stars (V= 4.3-13.9 mag) from the early phase of the Campaign. result 1.00 0.96 0.28 asserted 1.00
s3 We also present a novel approach to calculating contrast curves for companion detection based on 95% completeness in the recovery of artificial companions injected into the raw data, while accounting for the false-positive rate. contribution 0.90 0.95 0.15 asserted 1.00
s4 We use this technique to select the image processing algorithms that are more successful at recovering faint simulated point sources. method 0.94 0.96 0.07 asserted 0.99
s5 We compare our pipeline to the performance of the LOCI algorithm for NICI data and do not find significant improvement with LOCI. result 0.99 0.96 0.20 asserted 1.00

What kind of paper the classifier reports this is: method or tool 1.00 · evidence from observation or experiment 0.63.

What was examined, and what was not

sources read
  • arXiv listing abstract v3
not examined
  • full text
  • figures and tables
  • references and citing sentences
  • relations to other papers
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  • P abstract
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  • T body sentences
  • C citations
  • R cross-paper relations

Every quoted sentence on this record is the authors'. Every label is from Pith's closed vocabulary, with the probability shown beside it. Every number in the measurements table is the authors', checked by code. Record as JSON

The paper
Original abstract

We present the high-contrast image processing techniques used by the Gemini NICI Planet-Finding Campaign to detect faint companions to bright stars. NICI (Near Infrared Coronagraphic Imager) is an adaptive optics instrument installed on the 8-m Gemini South telescope, capable of angular and spectral difference imaging and specifically designed to image exoplanets. The Campaign data pipeline achieves median contrasts of 12.6 magnitudes at 0.5" and 14.4 magnitudes at 1" separation, for a sample of 45 stars (V= 4.3-13.9 mag) from the early phase of the Campaign. We also present a novel approach to calculating contrast curves for companion detection based on 95% completeness in the recovery of artificial companions injected into the raw data, while accounting for the false-positive rate. We use this technique to select the image processing algorithms that are more successful at recovering faint simulated point sources. We compare our pipeline to the performance of the LOCI algorithm for NICI data and do not find significant improvement with LOCI.

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