Development of a rotational shearing interferometer for detection of (habitable) exoplanets

The astronomers and the general population are fascinated with the exoplanet detection. More than 4,000 planets in various stages of planetary evolution have been reported so far. By far the largest number of those are the so-called Super-Earths, relatively cold planets orbiting a large, red giant star, with diameters up to 1 AU, most of them at about one hundred light-year distance from us. For infrared spectral regions, the planet-to-star S/N ratio is about to 10(-5). Interferometric techniques are often implemented to improve the detectability of a faint object. We proposed a rotational shearing interferometer (RSI) for exo-planet detection. We describe the status of this projects. The basic concept has been demonstrated in the laboratory. We are now expanding the detection capabilities of the RSI when the interferometer is not precisely aligned on the star. We analyze the extreme case of a Super Earth.