Related papers: Fundamental limits to high-contrast wavefront cont…
Polarization aberrations originating from the telescope and high-contrast imaging instrument optics introduce polarization-dependent speckles and associated errors in the image plane, affecting the measured exoplanet signal. Understanding…
High contrast imaging using coronagraphy is one of the main avenues to enable the search for life on extrasolar Earth analogs. The HiCAT testbed aims to demonstrate coronagraphy and wavefront control for segmented on-axis space telescopes…
Advancing the technological development of small inner working angle (IWA) coronagraphs is essential to enabling high-contrast imaging of temperate exoplanets with future extremely large telescopes. The PIAACMC has been shown to closely…
A major goal of proposed future space observatories, such as the Habitable World Observatory, is to directly image and characterize Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars to search for habitability signatures requiring the starlight…
Coronagraph designs which use photonic integrated circuits have the highest theoretical throughput for off-axis signals, and therefore the highest potential exoplanet yield for future high-contrast direct imaging campaigns. Using the…
To detect Earth-like planets in the visible with a coronagraphic telescope, two major noise sources have to be overcome: the photon noise of the diffracted star light, and the speckle noise due to the star light scattered by instrumental…
Maintaining wavefront stability while directly imaging exoplanets over long exposure times is an ongoing problem in the field of high-contrast imaging. Robust and efficient high-order wavefront sensing and control systems are required for…
Extra-solar planets direct imaging is now a reality with the deployment and commissioning of the first generation of specialized ground-based instruments (GPI, SPHERE, P1640 and SCExAO). These systems allow of planets $ 10 ^ 7 $ times…
Speckle Noise is the dominant source of error in high contrast imaging with adaptive optics system. We discuss the potential for wavefront sensing telemetry to calibrate speckle noise with sufficient precision and accuracy so that it can be…
It has previously been demonstrated in both simulation and experiment that well aligned remote focusing microscopes exhibit residual spherical aberration outside the focal plane. In this work, compensation of the residual spherical…
Optical beams and starlight distorted by atmospheric turbulence can be corrected with adaptive optics systems to enable efficient coupling into single-mode fibers. Deformable mirrors, used to flatten the wavefront in astronomical…
Segmented telescopes are a possibility to enable large-aperture space telescopes for the direct imaging and spectroscopy of habitable worlds. However, the complexity of their aperture geometry, due to the central obstruction, support…
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)…
The past decade has seen a significant growth in research targeted at space based observatories for imaging exo-solar planets. The challenge is in designing an imaging system for high-contrast. Even with a perfect coronagraph that modifies…
The new frontier in the quest for the highest contrast levels in the focal plane of a coronagraph is now the correction of the large diffractive artifacts effects introduced at the science camera by apertures of increasing complexity. The…
Focal plane wavefront sensing is an elegant solution for wavefront sensing since near-focal images of any source taken by a detector show distortions in the presence of aberrations. Non-Common Path Aberrations and the Low Wind Effect both…
We have reported previously on a new method we are developing for using image-based information to improve global coronal magnetic field models. In that work we presented early tests of the method which proved its capability to improve…
The fidelity of radio astronomical images is generally assessed by practical experience, i.e. using rules of thumb, although some aspects and cases have been treated rigorously. In this paper we present a mathematical framework capable of…
High contrast imaging of extrasolar planets and circumstellar disks requires extreme wavefront stability. Such stability can be achieved with active wavefront control (WFC). The next generation of ground- and space-based telescopes will…
This paper demonstrates a cryogenic deformable mirror (DM) with 1,020 actuators based on micro-electrical mechanical systems (MEMS) technology. Cryogenic space-borne infrared telescopes can experience a wavefront error due to a figure error…