Related papers: Notch Filter Masks: Practical Image Masks for Plan…
Exoplanetary science is a very active field of astronomy nowadays, with questions still opened such as how planetary systems form and evolve (occurrence, process), why such a diversity of exoplanets is observed (mass, radius, orbital…
We explore the capabilities of a starshade mission to directly image multi-star systems. In addition to the diffracted and scattered light for the on-axis star, a multi-star system features additional starlight leakage from the off-axis…
The band-limited coronagraph is a nearly ideal concept that theoretically enables perfect cancellation of all the light of an on-axis source. Over the past years, several prototypes have been developed and tested in the laboratory, and more…
With the recent commissioning of ground instruments such as SPHERE or GPI and future space observatories like WFIRST-AFTA, coronagraphy should probably become the most efficient tool for identifying and characterizing extra-solar planets in…
We propose a transmission-filter coronagraph for direct imaging of Jupiter-like exoplanets with ground-based telescopes. The coronagraph is based on a transmission filter that consists of finite number of transmission steps. A discrete…
We have designed and built the first band-limited coronagraphic mask used for ground-based high-contrast imaging observations. The mask resides in the focal plane of the near-infrared camera PHARO at the Palomar Hale telescope and receives…
Phase masks have numerous applications in astronomical optics, in particular related to two themes: coronography for detection and analysis of extrasolar planets or circumstellar disks, and wavefront analysis for extremely precise adaptive…
Broadband coronagraphy with deep nulling and small inner working angle has the potential of delivering images and spectra of exoplanets and other faint objects. In recent years, many coronagraphic schemes have been proposed, the most…
Directly imaging extrasolar planets using a monolithic optical telescope avoids many pitfalls of space interferometry and opens up the prospect of visible light studies of extrasolar planetary systems. Future astronomical missions may…
The optical vortex coronagraph is potentially a remarkably effective device, at least for an ideal unobstructed telescope. Most ground-based telescopes however suffer from central obscuration and also have to operate through the aberrations…
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…
Motivated by the desire to image exosolar planets, recent work by us and others has shown that high-contrast imaging can be achieved using specially shaped pupil masks. To date, the masks we have designed have been symmetric with respect to…
Imaging terrestrial exoplanets around nearby stars is a formidable technical challenge, requiring the development of coronagraphs to suppress the stellar halo of diffracted light at the location of the planet. In this review, we derive the…
Coronagraphy is an efficient technique for identifying and characterizing extra-solar planets orbiting in the habitable zone of their parent star. An important family of coronagraphs is based on amplitude or phase filters placed at an…
We analyse the fundamental limitations for the detection of extraterrestrial planets with Extremely Large Telescopes. For this task, a coronagraphic device combined to a very high order wavefront correction system is required but not…
We report on a soft route towards optical vortex coronagraphy based on self-engineered electrically tunable vortex masks based on liquid crystal topological defects. These results suggest that a nature-assisted technological approach to the…
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…
Specific high contrast imaging instruments are mandatory to characterize circumstellar disks and exoplanets around nearby stars. Coronagraphs are commonly used in these facilities to reject the diffracted light of an observed star and…
Deep sub-diffraction exoplanet discovery currently lies beyond the reach of state-of-the-art direct imaging coronagraphs, which typically have an inner working angle larger than the diffraction scale. We present an experimental…
Using 2 aspheric mirrors, it is possible to apodize a telescope beam without losing light or angular resolution: the output beam is produced by ``remapping'' the entrance beam to produce the desired light intensity distribution in a new…