The Space Coronagraph Optical Bench (SCoOB): 5. End-to-end simulations of polarization aberrations

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Main Authors: Anche, Ramya M, Van Gorkom, Kyle J., Ashcraft, Jaren N., Douglas, Ewan, Jenkins, Emory L, Haffert, Sebastiaan Y., Millar-Blanchaer, Maxwell A.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Anche, Ramya M
Van Gorkom, Kyle J.
Ashcraft, Jaren N.
Douglas, Ewan
Jenkins, Emory L
Haffert, Sebastiaan Y.
Millar-Blanchaer, Maxwell A.
author_facet Anche, Ramya M
Van Gorkom, Kyle J.
Ashcraft, Jaren N.
Douglas, Ewan
Jenkins, Emory L
Haffert, Sebastiaan Y.
Millar-Blanchaer, Maxwell A.
contents 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 this effect is critical for future space-based high-contrast imaging instruments that aim to image the Earth analogs with 1e-10 raw contrast and characterize their atmospheres. We present end-to-end modeling of the polarization aberrations for a high-contrast imaging testbed, SCoOB. We use a vector vortex coronagraph (VVC) as the focal plane mask, incorporate polarization filtering, and estimate the peak contrast in the dark hole region. The dominant polarization aberrations in the system are retardance defocus and tilt due to the OAPs and fold mirrors. Although the mean contrast in the dark hole region remains unaffected by the polarization aberrations, we see brighter speckles limiting the contrast to 1e-9 at smaller inner working angles. We extend the simulations using the measured retardance maps for the VVC. We find that the mean contrast in SCoOB is more sensitive to the VVC and the QWP retardance errors than the polarization aberrations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_18886
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Space Coronagraph Optical Bench (SCoOB): 5. End-to-end simulations of polarization aberrations
Anche, Ramya M
Van Gorkom, Kyle J.
Ashcraft, Jaren N.
Douglas, Ewan
Jenkins, Emory L
Haffert, Sebastiaan Y.
Millar-Blanchaer, Maxwell A.
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
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 this effect is critical for future space-based high-contrast imaging instruments that aim to image the Earth analogs with 1e-10 raw contrast and characterize their atmospheres. We present end-to-end modeling of the polarization aberrations for a high-contrast imaging testbed, SCoOB. We use a vector vortex coronagraph (VVC) as the focal plane mask, incorporate polarization filtering, and estimate the peak contrast in the dark hole region. The dominant polarization aberrations in the system are retardance defocus and tilt due to the OAPs and fold mirrors. Although the mean contrast in the dark hole region remains unaffected by the polarization aberrations, we see brighter speckles limiting the contrast to 1e-9 at smaller inner working angles. We extend the simulations using the measured retardance maps for the VVC. We find that the mean contrast in SCoOB is more sensitive to the VVC and the QWP retardance errors than the polarization aberrations.
title The Space Coronagraph Optical Bench (SCoOB): 5. End-to-end simulations of polarization aberrations
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.18886