Related papers: Closed-loop focal plane wavefront control with the…
The vector vortex is a coronagraphic imaging mode of the recently commissioned Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme-Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) platform on the 8-m Subaru Telescope. This multi-purpose high-contrast visible and near-infrared (R- to…
High-contrast imaging systems using active control with adaptive optics (AO) are often limited by non-common path (NCP) aberrations that are seen only at the final science image. AO systems employing focal-plane wavefront sensors (FP-WFSs)…
We present early laboratory simulations and extensive on-sky tests validating of the performance of a shaped pupil coronagraph (SPC) behind an extreme-AO corrected beam of the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) system. In…
Future space telescopes with coronagraph instruments will use a wavefront sensor (WFS) to measure and correct for phase errors and stabilize the stellar intensity in high-contrast images. The HabEx and LUVOIR mission concepts baseline a…
Future large space telescopes will be equipped with adaptive optics (AO) to overcome wavefront aberrations and achieve high contrast for imaging faint astronomical objects, such as earth-like exoplanets and debris disks. In contrast to AO…
High contrast coronagraphic imaging is challenging for telescopes with central obstructions and thick spider vanes, such as the Subaru Telescope. We present in this paper the first laboratory demonstration of a high efficiency PIAA-type…
Adaptive optics systems are critical in any application where highly resolved imaging or beam control must be performed through a dynamic medium. Such applications include astronomy and free-space optical communications, where light…
Extreme wavefront correction is required for coronagraphs on future space telescopes to reach 1e-8 or better starlight suppression for the direct imaging and characterization of exoplanets in reflected light. Thus, a suite of wavefront…
Ground-based high contrast imaging (HCI) and extreme adaptive optics (AO) technologies have advanced to the point of enabling direct detections of gas-giant exoplanets orbiting beyond the snow lines around nearby young star systems.…
The direct imaging and characterization of exoplanets requires extreme adaptive optics (XAO), achieving exquisite wavefront correction (upwards of 90$\%$ Strehl) over a narrow field of view (a few arcseconds). For these XAO systems the…
Wavefront sensors encode phase information of an incoming wavefront into an intensity pattern that can be measured on a camera. Several kinds of wavefront sensors (WFS) are used in astronomical adaptive optics. Amongst them, Fourier-based…
We describe the current performance of the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) instrument on the Subaru telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii and present early science results for SCExAO coupled with the CHARIS integral field…
After 16 years of on-sky operation, Subaru Telescope's facility adaptive optics AO188 is getting several major upgrades to become the extreme-AO AO3000 (3000 actuators in the pupil compared to 188 previously). AO3000 will provide…
High contrast coronagraphic imaging of the immediate surrounding of stars requires exquisite control of low-order wavefront aberrations, such as tip-tilt (pointing) and focus. We propose an accurate, efficient and easy to implement…
Optical imperfections, misalignments, aberrations, and even dust can significantly limit sensitivity in high-contrast imaging systems such as coronagraphs. An upstream deformable mirror (DM) in the pupil can be used to correct or compensate…
The PIAA is a now well demonstrated high contrast technique that uses an intermediate remapping of the pupil for high contrast coronagraphy (apodization), before restoring it to recover classical imaging capabilities. This paper presents…
High-contrast imaging provided by a coronagraph is critical for the direction imaging of the Earth-like planet orbiting its bright parent star. A major limitation for such direct imaging is the speckle noise that is induced from the…
Adaptive Optics projects at Subaru Telescope span a wide field of capabilities ranging from ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO) providing partial correction over a 20 arcmin FOV to extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) for exoplanet imaging. We…
The challenges of high contrast imaging (HCI) for detecting exoplanets for both ground and space applications can be met with extreme adaptive optics (ExAO), a high-order adaptive optics system that performs wavefront sensing (WFS) and…
We present the results obtained with an end-to-end simulator of an Extreme Adaptive Optics (XAO) system control loop. It is used to predict its on-sky performances and to optimise the AO loop algorithms. It was first used to validate a…