Fourth-order Coronagraph for High-Contrast Imaging of Exoplanets with Off-axis Segmented Telescopes
arXiv:2002.10762 · doi:10.3847/1538-3881/ab811c
Abstract
We propose a coronagraphic system with fourth-order null for off-axis segmented telescopes, which is sufficiently insensitive to the telescope pointing errors and finite angular diameter of the host star to enable high-contrast imaging of potentially habitable planets. The inner working angle of the coronagraphic system is close to , and there is no outer limit. The proposed coronagraphic system is made up of a new focal plane mask and an optimized Lyot stop with the second-order null. The new focal plane mask is an extension of the band-limited masks with a phase modulation. We construct a coronagraphic system with fourth-order null by placing two of the new coronagraph systems in succession to be orthogonal to each other. The proposed system is limited to narrow-band usage. The characteristics of the proposed coronagraph system are derived analytically, which includes: (1)the leak of stellar lights due to finite stellar diameter and pointing jitter of a telescope, and (2)the peak throughput. We achieve the performance simulations of this coronagraphic system based on these analytical expressions, considering a monochromatic light of 0.75m and off-axis primary mirror with a diameter of 8.5m. Thanks to the wide working area of the mask, the result shows that terrestrial planets orbiting K and G-dwarfs can be detected under the condition that the telescope pointing jitter is less than as. The proposed coronagraphic system is promising for detection of potentially habitable planets with future space off-axis hexagonally segmented telescopes.
arXiv commentAccepted for Publication in The Astronomical Journal
References in corpus (27)
- The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
- Habitable Zones Around Main-Sequence Stars: New Estimates
- A terrestrial planet candidate in a temperate orbit around Proxima Centauri
- Planet Occurrence within 0.25 AU of Solar-type Stars from Kepler
- Temperate Earth-sized planets transiting a nearby ultracool dwarf star
- Stellar Diameters and Temperatures II. Main Sequence K & M Stars
- Exoplanet Biosignatures: A Review of Remotely Detectable Signs of Life
- Theoretical Limits on Extrasolar Terrestrial Planet Detection with Coronagraphs
- Exoplanet Biosignatures: Understanding Oxygen as a Biosignature in the Context of Its Environment
- How to Characterize Habitable Worlds and Signs of Life
- Apodized Pupil Lyot Coronagraphs for Arbitrary Telescope Apertures
- A Coronagraph with a Band-Limited Mask for Finding Terrestrial Planets
- Exoplanet Biosignatures: A Framework for Their Assessment
- Exoplanet Biosignatures: Observational Prospects
- Exoplanets imaging with a Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization Coronagraph - I. Principle
- Optimal Occulter Design for Finding Extrasolar Planets
- Apodized pupil Lyot coronagraphs for arbitrary apertures. V. Hybrid Shaped Pupil designs for imaging Earth-like planets with future space observatories
- Vortex coronagraphs for the Habitable Exoplanet Imaging Mission (HabEx) concept: theoretical performance and telescope requirements
- Lyot Coronagraphy on Giant Segmented-Mirror Telescopes
- A New Concept for Spectro-photometry of Exoplanets with Space-based Telescopes
- A New Concept for Direct Imaging and Spectral Characterization of Exoplanets in Multi-planet Systems
- Notch Filter Masks: Practical Image Masks for Planet-Finding Coronagraphs
- High-Contrast Testbeds for Future Space-Based Direct Imaging Exoplanet Missions
- The Big Occulting Steerable Satellite (BOSS)
- Using Notch-Filter Masks for High Contrast Imaging of Extrasolar Planets
- Pupil Masks for Spectrophotometry of Transiting Exoplanets
- A New Method for Calibration of Gain Variation in Detector System