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arXiv · 0911.1307

High Contrast Imaging and Wavefront Control with a PIAA Coronagraph: Laboratory System Validation

Olivier Guyon·Eugene Pluzhnik·Frantz Martinache·Julien Totems·Shinichiro Tanaka·Taro Matsuo·Celia Blain·Ruslan Belikov
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Abstract

The Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization (PIAA) coronagraph is a high performance coronagraph concept able to work at small angular separation with little loss in throughput. We present results obtained with a laboratory PIAA system including active wavefront control. The system has a 94.3% throughput (excluding coating losses) and operates in air with monochromatic light. Our testbed achieved a 2.27e-7 raw contrast between 1.65 lambda/D (inner working angle of the coronagraph configuration tested) and 4.4 lambda/D (outer working angle). Through careful calibration, we were able to separate this residual light into a dynamic coherent component (turbulence, vibrations) at 4.5e-8 contrast and a static incoherent component (ghosts and/or polarization missmatch) at 1.6e-7 contrast. Pointing errors are controlled at the 1e-3 lambda/D level using a dedicated low order wavefront sensor. While not sufficient for direct imaging of Earth-like planets from space, the 2.27e-7 raw contrast achieved already exceeds requirements for a ground-based Extreme Adaptive Optics system aimed at direct detection of more massive exoplanets. We show that over a 4hr long period, averaged wavefront errors have been controlled to the 3.5e-9 contrast level. This result is particularly encouraging for ground based Extreme-AO systems relying on long term stability and absence of static wavefront errors to recover planets much fainter than the fast boiling speckle halo.

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Olivier Guyon, Eugene Pluzhnik, Frantz Martinache, Julien Totems, Shinichiro Tanaka, Taro Matsuo, Celia Blain, Ruslan Belikov. 2009-11-06. High Contrast Imaging and Wavefront Control with a PIAA Coronagraph: Laboratory System Validation. https://doi.org/10.1086/649802

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