Related papers: Active correction of aperture discontinuities - op…
The spatial-temporal evolution of coronal plasma parameters of the solar outer atmosphere at global scales, derived from solar full-disk imaging spectroscopic observation in the extreme-ultraviolet band, is critical for understanding and…
Accurate astrometry and photometry of saturated and coronagraphic point spread functions (PSFs) are fundamental to both ground- and space-based high contrast imaging projects. For ground-based adaptive optics imaging, differential…
Phase-induced amplitude apodization (PIAA) coronagraphs are a promising technology for imaging exoplanets, with the potential to detect Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars. A PIAA system nominally consists of a pair of mirrors which…
The EXoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer (EXCEDE) science mission concept uses a visible-wavelength Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization (PIAA) coronagraph to enable high-contrast imaging of circumstellar debris systems…
Rather than using an adaptive optics (AO) system to correct a telescope s entire pupil, it can instead be used to more finely correct a smaller sub-aperture. Indeed, existing AO systems can be used to correct a sub-aperture 1/3 to 1/2 the…
Adaptive optics (AO) offers an opportunity to stabilize an image and maximize the spatial resolution achievable by ground based telescopes by removing the distortions due to the atmosphere. Typically, the deformable mirror in an AO system…
Optical coordinate transformation (OCT) has attracted widespread attention in the field of orbital angular momentum (OAM) (de)multiplexing or manipulation, but the performance of OCT would suffer from its distortion. In this paper, we…
Aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopes (STEM) provide sub-angstrom lateral resolution; however, the large convergence angle greatly reduces the depth of field. For microscopes with a small depth of field,…
For diffraction-limited optical systems an accurate physical optics model is necessary to properly evaluate instrument performance. Astronomical observatories outfitted with coronagraphs for direct exoplanet imaging require physical optics…
Directly imaging and characterizing Earth-like exoplanets is a tremendously difficult instrumental challenge. Present coronagraphic systems have yet to achieve the required $10^{-10}$ broadband contrast in a laboratory environment, but…
A new generation of telescopes with mirror diameters of 20 m or more, called extremely large telescopes (ELTs) has the potential to provide unprecedented imaging and spectroscopy of exo-planetary systems, if the difficulties in achieving…
Direct observation of extra-solar planets (exoplanets) is essential to understand how planetary systems were born, how they evolve, and ultimately, to identify biological signatures on these planets. However, the enormous contrast in flux…
High-precision ground-based observations of the inner corona (1.05-2.0 R_sun) are fundamentally constrained by instrumental stray light, particularly the additive background from dynamic dust accumulation on the objective lens. To address…
The WFIRST-AFTA 2.4 m telescope will provide in the next decade the opportunity to host a coronagraph for the imaging and spectroscopy of planets and disks. The telescope, however, is not ideal, given its obscured aperture. Only recently…
Modern coronagraph design relies on advanced, large-scale optimization processes that require an ever increasing amount of computational resources. In this paper, we restrict ourselves to the design of Apodized Pupil Lyot Coronagraphs…
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will use an active optics system (AOS) to maintain alignment and surface figure on its three large mirrors. Corrective actions fed to the LSST AOS are determined from information derived from 4…
The exoplanetary science through direct imaging and spectroscopy will largely expand with the forthcoming development of new instruments at the VLT (SPHERE), Gemini (GPI), Subaru (HiCIAO), and Palomar (Project 1640) observatories. All these…
Over the past two decades, thousands of confirmed exoplanets have been detected. The next major challenge is to characterize these other worlds and their stellar systems. Much information on the composition and formation of exoplanets and…
Large-volume optical coherence tomography (OCT)-setups employ scanning mirrors and suffer from non-linear geometric distortion artifacts in which the degree of distortion is determined by the maximum angles over which the mirrors rotate. In…
RISTRETTO is the evolution of the original idea of coupling the VLT instruments SPHERE and ESPRESSO, aiming at High Dispersion Coronagraphy. RISTRETTO is a visitor instrument that should enable the characterization of the atmospheres of…