Related papers: Experimental Verification of a One-Dimensional Dif…
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…
We investigate the stability of a segmented deformable mirror (DM) on high-contrast testbeds and its impact on the images produced with coronagraphs. Segmented apertures are promising to obtain large primary mirrors for future missions with…
Starshades are a leading technology to enable the detection and spectroscopic characterization of Earth-like exoplanets. In this paper we report on optical experiments of sub-scale starshades that advance critical starlight suppression…
The design of liquid-crystal diffractive phase plate coronagraphs for ground-based and space-based high-contrast imaging systems is limited by the trade-off between spectral bandwidth and polarization leakage. We demonstrate that by…
The Optimal Optical Coronagraph (OOC) Workshop at the Lorentz Center in September 2017 in Leiden, the Netherlands gathered a diverse group of 25 researchers working on exoplanet instrumentation to stimulate the emergence and sharing of new…
Direct detection and spectroscopy of exoplanets requires high contrast imaging. For habitable exoplanets in particular, located at small angular separation from the host star, it is crucial to employ small inner working angle (IWA)…
With a clear circular aperture, the vortex coronagraph perfectly cancels an on-axis point source and offers a 0.9 or 1.75 lambda/D inner working angle for topological charge 2 or 4, respectively. Current and near-future large telescopes are…
We present the fabrication and experimental demonstration of three free-standing binary shaped pupil mask coronagraphs, which are applicable for telescopes with partially obscured pupils. Three masks, designed to be complementary (labeled…
CONTEXT: The four-quadrant phase mask stellar coronagraph, introduced by D. Rouan et al., is capable of achieving very high dynamical range imaging and was studied in the context of the direct detection of extra-solar planets. Achromatic…
Circumstellar environments are now routinely observed by dedicated high-contrast imagers on large, ground-based observatories. These facilities combine extreme adaptive optics and coronagraphy to achieve unprecedented sensitivities for…
The current generation of ground-based coronagraphic instruments uses deformable mirrors to correct for phase errors and to improve contrast levels at small angular separations. Improving these techniques, several space and ground based…
Quasi-static aberrations in coronagraphic systems are the ultimate limitation to the capabilities of exoplanet imagers both ground-based and space-based. These aberrations - which can be due to various causes such as optics alignment or…
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…
General arguments for optimized coronagraphy in the search for planets are presented. First, off-axis telescopes provide the best telescopic platforms for use with coronagraphy, and telescope fabrication technology now allows the…
The detection and characterization of Earth-like exoplanets around Sun-like stars for future flagship missions requires coronagraphs to achieve contrasts on the order of 1e-10 at close angular separations and over large spectral bandwidths…
The final performance of current and future instruments dedicated to exoplanet detection and characterization (such as SPHERE on the European Very Large Telescope, GPI on Gemini North, or future instruments on Extremely Large Telescopes) is…
As adaptive optics technology continues to improve, the stellar coronagraph will play an ever increasing role in ground-based high-contrast imaging observations. Though several different image masks exist for the most common type of…
The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is a flagship mission concept proposing to characterize earth-like exoplanets at high contrast with a coronagraph instrument. The most in-depth, validated contrast error budgets made to date have been…
The Roman Space Telescope will be a critical mission to demonstrate high-contrast imaging technologies allowing for the characterisation of exoplanets in reflected light. It will demonstrate $10^{-7}$ contrast limits or better at 3--9…
High-contrast imaging from space must overcome two major noise sources to successfully detect a terrestrial planet angularly close to its parent star: photon noise from diffracted star light, and speckle noise from star light scattered by…