arXiv subjects

Lane Meier

Publications and source records attributed to Lane Meier.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

CATKit2-HCI: a collaborative framework for advancing high-contrast coronagraph testbeds

High-contrast exoplanet imaging requires dedicated laboratory testbeds for the development and validation of coronagraph architectures, wavefront sensing and control methods, calibration strategies, and system-level observing concepts. These testbeds often share similar software needs, yet many tools are developed independently at each institution. The CATKit2-High-Contrast-Imaging collaboration, or CATKit2-HCI, addresses this gap by providing a shared software framework for reusable HCI infrastructure. Built on top of CATKit2, an open-source hardware control and synchronization framework originally developed for the High-contrast Imager for Complex Aperture Telescopes (HiCAT) testbed at the Space Telescope Science Institute, CATKit2-HCI provides the collaborative layer for HCI-specific algorithms, calibration tools, diagnostics, visualization, and performance metrics. The collaboration currently includes multiple coronagraph testbeds in the United States and Europe. Its goals are to reduce duplicated software development, improve code quality through shared review, enable more direct comparison of results across facilities, and facilitate the movement of students, postdoctoral researchers, and collaborators between laboratories. We describe the motivation, architecture, collaboration model, shared technical capabilities, and early cross-testbed examples of CATKit2-HCI as a framework for accelerating coronagraph technology development.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2021

Quantum yield and charge diffusion in the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope infrared detectors

The shear signal required for weak lensing analyses is small, so any detector-level effects which distort astronomical images can contaminate the inferred shear. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Roman) will fly a focal plane with 18 Teledyne H4RG-10 near infrared (IR) detector arrays; these have never been used for weak lensing and they present unique instrument calibration challenges. A pair of previous investigations (Hirata & Choi 2020; Choi & Hirata 2020) demonstrated that spatiotemporal correlations of flat fields can effectively separate the brighter-fatter effect (BFE) and interpixel capacitance (IPC). Later work (Freudenburg et al. 2020) introduced a Fourier-space treatment of these correlations which allowed the authors to expand to higher orders in BFE, IPC, and classical nonlinearity (CNL). This work expands the previous formalism to include quantum yield and charge diffusion. We test the updated formalism on simulations and show that we can recover input characterization values. We then apply the formalism to visible and IR flat field data from three Roman flight candidate detectors. We fit a 2D Gaussian model to the charge diffusion at 0.5 $\mu$m wavelength, and find variances of $C_{11} = 0.1066\pm 0.0011$ pix$^2$ in the horizontal direction, $C_{22} = 0.1136\pm 0.0012$ pix$^2$ in the vertical direction, and a covariance of $C_{12} = 0.0001\pm 0.0007$ pix$^2$ (stat) for SCA 20829. Last, we convert the asymmetry of the charge diffusion into an equivalent shear signal, and find a contamination of the shear correlation function to be $\xi_+ \sim 10^{-6}$ for each detector. This exceeds Roman's allotted error budget for the measurement by a factor of $\mathcal{O}(10)$ in power (amplitude squared) but can likely be mitigated through standard methods for fitting the point spread function (PSF) since charge diffusion can be treated as a contribution to the PSF.

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arXiv2020

Properties and characteristics of the WFIRST H4RG-10 detectors

The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) will answer fundamental questions about the evolution of dark energy over time and expand the catalog of known exoplanets into new regions of parameter space. Using a Hubble-sized mirror and 18 newly developed HgCdTe 4K x 4K photodiode arrays (H4RG-10), WFIRST will measure the positions and shapes of hundreds of millions of galaxies, the light curves of thousands of supernovae, and the microlensing signals of over a thousand exoplanets toward the bulge of the Galaxy. These measurements require unprecedented sensitivity and characterization of the Wide Field Instrument (WFI), particularly its detectors. The WFIRST project undertook an extensive detector development program to create focal plane arrays that meet these science requirements. These prototype detectors have been characterized and their performance demonstrated in a relevant space-like environment (thermal vacuum, vibration, acoustic, and radiation testing), advancing the H4RG-10's technology readiness level (TRL) to TRL-6. We present the performance characteristics of these TRL-6 demonstration devices.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2020

Brighter-fatter effect in near-infrared detectors -- III. Fourier-domain treatment of flat field correlations and application to WFIRST

Weak gravitational lensing has emerged as a leading probe of the growth of cosmic structure. However, the shear signal is very small and accurate measurement depends critically on our ability to understand how non-ideal instrumental effects affect astronomical images. WFIRST will fly a focal plane containing 18 Teledyne H4RG-10 near infrared detector arrays, which present different instrument calibration challenges from previous weak lensing observations. Previous work has shown that correlation functions of flat field images are effective tools for disentangling linear and non-linear inter-pixel capacitance (IPC) and the brighter-fatter effect (BFE). Here we present a Fourier-domain treatment of the flat field correlations, which allows us to expand the previous formalism to all orders in IPC, BFE, and classical non-linearity. We show that biases in simulated flat field analyses in Paper I are greatly reduced through the use of this formalism. We then apply this updated formalism to flat field data from three WFIRST flight candidate detectors, and explore the robustness to variations in the analysis. We find that the BFE is present in all three detectors, and that its contribution to the flat field correlations dominates over the non-linear IPC. The magnitude of the BFE is such that the effective area of a pixel is increased by $(3.54\pm0.03)\times 10^{-7}$ for every electron deposited in a neighboring pixel. We compare IPC maps from flat field autocorrelation measurements to those obtained from the single pixel reset method and find a median difference of 0.113%. After further diagnosis of this difference, we ascribe it largely to an additional source of cross-talk, the vertical trailing pixel effect, and recommend further work to develop a model for this effect. These results represent a significant step toward calibration of the non-ideal effects in WFIRST detectors.

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