High contrast imaging for the enhanced resolution imager and spectrometer (ERIS)

Abstract

ERIS is a diffraction limited thermal infrared imager and spectrograph for the Very Large Telescope UT4. One of the science cases for ERIS is the detection and characterization of circumstellar structures and exoplanets around bright stars that are typically much fainter than the stellar diffraction halo. Enhanced sensitivity is provided through the combination of (i) suppression of the diffraction halo of the target star using coronagraphs, and (ii) removal of any residual diffraction structure through focal plane wavefront sensing and subsequent active correction. In this paper we present the two coronagraphs used for diffraction suppression and enabling high contrast imaging in ERIS.

8 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (4)

• The W. M. Keck Observatory infrared vortex coronagraph and a first image of HIP79124 B
• Performance characterization of a broadband vector Apodizing Phase Plate coronagraph
• On-sky performance of the QACITS pointing control technique with the Keck/NIRC2 vortex coronagraph
• Optimizing the subwavelength grating of L-band Annular Groove Phase Masks for high coronagraphic performance

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Detectability of satellites around directly imaged exoplanets and brown dwarfs
• Measuring the variability of directly imaged exoplanets using vector Apodizing Phase Plates combined with ground-based differential spectrophotometry
• Improved companion mass limits for Sirius A with thermal infrared coronagraphy using a vector-apodizing phase plate and time-domain starlight-subtraction techniques
• An optimised survey strategy for the ERIS/NIX imager: searching for young giant exoplanets and very low mass brown dwarfs using the K-peak custom photometric filter