Polarization Effects in Reflecting Coronagraphs for White Light Applications in Astronomy

Abstract

The properties of metal thin films have been largely overlooked in discussions of the technical limitations and problems that arise in the field of direct detection of exoplanets. Here, polarization properties and anisotropy properties of highly reflecting thin metal films are examined within the context of the requirements for the ultra-low scattered-light system performance of coronagraphs applied to space and ground-based high-contrast, white-light astronomy. Wavelength-dependent optical constants for highly reflecting thin metal films, taken from the literature are used to calculate the polarization-dependent transmissivity of a typical coronagraph. The effects of degraded performance on the astronomical science are examined. Suggestions are made for future work.

14 Pages, 7 Figures, Accepted to Astrophysical Journal

Cited by in corpus (5)

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• Low Order Aberrations in Band-Limited Lyot Coronagraphs
• The IRCAL Polarimeter: Design, Calibration, and Data Reduction for an Adaptive Optics Imaging Polarimeter
• Direct Detection of Planets Orbiting Large Angular Diameter Stars: Sensitivity of an Internally-Occulting Space-Based Coronagraph
• Probability density function and detection threshold in high contrast imaging with partially polarized light