arXiv subjects

Yongtian Zhu

Publications and source records attributed to Yongtian Zhu.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Portable Adaptive Optics for Exoplanet Imaging

The Portable Adaptive Optics (PAO) is a low-cost and compact system, designed for 4-meter class telescopes that have no Adaptive Optics (AO), because of the physical space limitation at the Nasmyth or Cassegrain focus and the historically high cost of the conventional AO. The initial scientific observations of the PAO are focused on the direct imaging of exoplanets and sub-stellar companions. This paper discusses the PAO concept and the associated high-contrast imaging performance in our recent observational runs. PAO is delivering a Strehl ratio better than $60\%$ in $H$ band under median seeing conditions of $1 ''$. Combined with our dedicated image rotation and subtraction (IRS) technique and the optimized IRS (O-IRS) algorithm, the averaged contrast ratio for a $5\leq V\rm_{mag} \leq 9$ primary star is $1.3 \times 10^{-5}$ and $3.3 \times 10^{-6}$ at angular distance of $0.36 ''$ under exposure time of 7 minutes and 2 hours, respectively. PAO has successfully revealed the known exoplanet of $κ$ And b, in our recent observation at 3.5-meter ARC telescope at Apache Point Observatory. We have performed the associated astrometry and photometry analysis of the recovered $κ$ And b planet, which gives a projected separation of $0.984 \pm 0.05 ''$, a position angle of $51.1 \pm 0.5^{\circ}$, and a mass of $10.15_{-1.255}^{+2.19}M_{\rm Jup}$. These results demonstrate that PAO can be used for direct imaging of exoplanets with medium-sized telescopes.

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arXiv2020

The backbone-residual model. Accurately characterising the instrumental profile of a fibre-fed echelle spectrograph

Context: Instrumental profile (IP) is the basic property of a spectrograph. Accurate IP characterisation is the prerequisite of accurate wavelength solution. It also facilitates new spectral acquisition methods such as the forward modeling and deconvolution. Aims: We investigate an IP modeling method for the fibre-fed echelle spectrograph with the emission lines of the ThAr lamp, and explore the method to evaluate the accuracy of IP characterisation. Methods: The backbone-residual (BR) model is put forward and tested on the fibre-fed High Resolution Spectrograph (HRS) at the Chinese Xinglong 2.16-m Telescope, which is the sum of the backbone function and the residual function. The backbone function is a bell-shaped function to describe the main component and the spatial variation of IP. The residual function, which is expressed as the cubic spline function, accounts for the difference between the bell-shaped function and the actual IP. The method of evaluating the accuracy of IP characterisation is based on the spectral reconstruction and Monte Carlo simulation. Results: The IP of HRS is characterised with the BR model, and the accuracy of the characterised IP reaches 0.006 of the peak value of the backbone function. This result demonstrates that the accurate IP characterisation has been achieved on HRS with the BR model, and the BR model is an excellent choice for accurate IP characterisation of fibre-fed echelle spectrographs.

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arXiv2018

Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE): a preliminary design of multi-object high resolution spectrograph

The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) project will transform the CFHT 3.6m optical telescope to a 10m class dedicated multi-object spectroscopic facility, with an ability to measure thousands of objects with three spectral resolution modes respectively low resolution of R~3,000, moderate resolution of R~6,000 and high resolution of R~40,000. Two identical multi-object high resolution spectrographs are expected to simultaneously produce 1084 spectra with high resolution of 40,000 at Blue (401-416nm) and Green (472-489nm) channels, and 20,000 at Red (626-674nm) channel. At the Conceptual Design Phase (CoDP), different optical schemes were proposed to meet the challenging requirements, especially a unique design with a novel transmission image slicer array, and another conventional design with oversize Volume Phase Holographic (VPH) gratings. It became clear during the CoDP that both designs presented problems of complexity or feasibility of manufacture, especially high line density disperser (general name for all kinds of grating, grism, prism). At the present, a new design scheme is proposed for investigating the optimal way to reduce technical risk and get more reliable estimation of cost and timescale. It contains new dispersers, F/2 fast collimator and so on. Therein, the disperser takes advantage of a special grism and a prism to reduce line density on grating surface, keep wide opening angle of optical path, and get the similar spectrum layout in all three spectral channels. For the fast collimator, it carefully compares on-axis and off-axis designs in throughput, interface to fiber assembly and technical risks. The current progress is more competitive and credible than the previous design, but it also indicates more challenging work will be done to improve its accessibility in engineering.

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arXiv2017

Design and experimental test of an optical vortex coronagraph

The optical vortex coronagraph (OVC) is one of the promising ways for direct imaging exoplanets because of its small inner working angle and high throughput. This paper presents the design and laboratory demonstration performance at 633nm and 1520nm of the OVC based on liquid crystal polymers (LCP). Two LCPs has been manufactured in partnership with a commercial vendor. The OVC can deliver a good performance in laboratory test and achieve the contrast of the order 10^-6 at angular distance 3λ/D, which is able to image the giant exoplanets at a young stage in combination with extreme adaptive optics.

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arXiv2015

A Transmission-Filter Coronagraph: Design and Test

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 optimization algorithm is proposed for the design of the transmission filter that is optimized for ground-based telescopes with central obstructions and spider structures.We discussed the algorithm that is applied for our coronagraph design. To demonstrate the performance of the coronagraph, a filter was manufactured and laboratory tests were conducted. The test results show that the coronagraph can achieve a high contrast of 10 to -6.5 at an inner working angle of 5λ/D, which indicates that our coronagraph can be immediately used for the direct imaging of Jupiter-like exoplanets with ground-based telescopes.

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arXiv2015

A High-contrast Imaging Algorithm: Optimized Image Rotation and Subtraction

Image Rotation and Subtraction (IRS) is a high-contrast imaging technique which can be used to suppress the speckles noise and facilitate the direct detection of exoplanets. IRS is different from Angular Differential Imaging (ADI), in which it will subtract a copy of the image with 180 degrees rotated around its PSF center, rather than the subtraction of the median of all of the PSF images. Since the planet itself will be rotated to the other side of the PSF, IRS does not suffer from planet self-subtraction. In this paper, we have introduced an optimization algorithm to IRS (OIRS), which can provide an extra contrast gain at small angular separations. The performance of OIRS has been demonstrated with ADI data. We then made a comparison of the signal to noise ratio (S/N) achieved by algorithms of locally optimized combination of images (LOCI) and OIRS. Finally we found that OIRS algorithm can deliver a better S/N for small angular separations.

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arXiv2010

An iterative wave-front sensing algorithm for high-contrast imaging systems

Wave-front sensing from focal plane multiple images is a promising technique for high-contrast imaging systems. However, the wave-front error of an optics system can be properly reconstructed only when it is very small. This paper presents an iterative optimization algorithm for the measurement of large static wave-front errors directly from only one focal plane image. We firstly measure the intensity of the pupil image to get the pupil function of the system and acquire the aberrated image on the focal plane with a phase error that is to be measured. Then we induce a dynamic phase to the tested pupil function and calculate the associated intensity of the reconstructed image on the focal plane. The algorithm is to minimize the intensity difference between the reconstructed image and the tested aberrated image on the focal plane, where the induced phase is as the variable of the optimization algorithm. The simulation shows that the wave-front of an optics system can be theoretically reconstructed with a high precision, which indicates that such an iterative algorithm may be an effective way for the wave-front sensing for high-contrast imaging systems.

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arXiv2009

High-contrast coronagraph for ground-based imaging of Jupiter-like planets

We propose a high-contrast coronagraph for direct imaging of young Jupiter-like planets orbiting nearby bright stars. The coronagraph employs a step-transmission filter in which the intensity is apodized with a finite number of steps of identical transmission in each step. It should be installed on a large ground-based telescope equipped with state-of-the-art adaptive optics systems. In that case, contrast ratios around 10^-6 should be accessible within 0.1 arc seconds of the central star. In recent progress, a coronagraph with circular apodizing filter has been developing, which can be used for a ground-based telescope with central obstruction and spider structure. It is shown that ground-based direct imaging of Jupiter-like planets is promising with current technology.

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