Laboratory demonstration of the wrapped staircase scalar vortex coronagraph

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Desai, Niyati, Ruane, Garreth J., Llop-Sayson, Jorge D., Bertrou-Cantou, Arielle, Potier, Axel, Riggs, A. J. Eldorado, Serabyn, Eugene, Mawet, Dimitri P.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Desai, Niyati
Ruane, Garreth J.
Llop-Sayson, Jorge D.
Bertrou-Cantou, Arielle
Potier, Axel
Riggs, A. J. Eldorado
Serabyn, Eugene
Mawet, Dimitri P.
author_facet Desai, Niyati
Ruane, Garreth J.
Llop-Sayson, Jorge D.
Bertrou-Cantou, Arielle
Potier, Axel
Riggs, A. J. Eldorado
Serabyn, Eugene
Mawet, Dimitri P.
contents Of the over 5000 exoplanets that have been detected, only about a dozen have ever been directly imaged. Earth-like exoplanets are on the order of 10 billion times fainter than their host star in visible and near-infrared, requiring a coronagraph instrument to block primary starlight and allow for the imaging of nearby orbiting planets. In the pursuit of direct imaging of exoplanets, scalar vortex coronagraphs (SVCs) are an attractive alternative to vector vortex coronagraphs (VVCs). VVCs have demonstrated 2e-9 raw contrast in broadband light but have several limitations due to their polarization properties. SVCs imprint the same phase ramp as VVCs on the incoming light and do not require polarization splitting, but they are inherently chromatic. Discretized phase ramp patterns such as a wrapped staircase help reduce SVC chromaticity and simulations show it outperforms a chromatic classical vortex in broadband light. We designed, fabricated, and tested a wrapped staircase SVC, and here we present the broadband characterization on the high contrast spectroscopy testbed. We also performed wavefront correction on the in-air coronagraph testbed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and achieved an average raw contrasts of 3.2e-8 in monochromatic light and 2.2e-7 across a 10% bandwidth.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2305_05076
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Laboratory demonstration of the wrapped staircase scalar vortex coronagraph
Desai, Niyati
Ruane, Garreth J.
Llop-Sayson, Jorge D.
Bertrou-Cantou, Arielle
Potier, Axel
Riggs, A. J. Eldorado
Serabyn, Eugene
Mawet, Dimitri P.
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Of the over 5000 exoplanets that have been detected, only about a dozen have ever been directly imaged. Earth-like exoplanets are on the order of 10 billion times fainter than their host star in visible and near-infrared, requiring a coronagraph instrument to block primary starlight and allow for the imaging of nearby orbiting planets. In the pursuit of direct imaging of exoplanets, scalar vortex coronagraphs (SVCs) are an attractive alternative to vector vortex coronagraphs (VVCs). VVCs have demonstrated 2e-9 raw contrast in broadband light but have several limitations due to their polarization properties. SVCs imprint the same phase ramp as VVCs on the incoming light and do not require polarization splitting, but they are inherently chromatic. Discretized phase ramp patterns such as a wrapped staircase help reduce SVC chromaticity and simulations show it outperforms a chromatic classical vortex in broadband light. We designed, fabricated, and tested a wrapped staircase SVC, and here we present the broadband characterization on the high contrast spectroscopy testbed. We also performed wavefront correction on the in-air coronagraph testbed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and achieved an average raw contrasts of 3.2e-8 in monochromatic light and 2.2e-7 across a 10% bandwidth.
title Laboratory demonstration of the wrapped staircase scalar vortex coronagraph
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.05076