Laboratory Testing of a Lyot Coronagraph Equipped with an Eighth-Order Notch Filter Image Mask

Abstract

We have built a series of notch filter image masks that make the Lyot coronagraph less susceptible to low-spatial-frequency optical aberrations. In this paper, we present experimental results of their performance in the lab using monochromatic light. Our tests show that these ``eighth-order'' masks are resistant to tilt and focus alignment errors, and can generate contrast levels of 2 x 10^-6 at 3 lambda/D and 6 x 10^-7 at 10 lambda/D without the use of corrective optics such as deformable mirrors. This work supports recent theoretical studies suggesting that eighth-order masks can provide the Terrestrial Planet Finder Coronagraph with a large search area, high off-axis throughput, and a practical requisite pointing accuracy.

Accepted to ApJ. 16 pages, 7 figures, Contact [email protected] for high resolution images

References in corpus (8)

• A Coronagraph with a Band-Limited Mask for Finding Terrestrial Planets
• Ground-Based Coronagraphy with High Order Adaptive Optics
• Can Life develop in the expanded habitable zones around Red Giant Stars?
• Eighth-Order Image Masks for Terrestrial Planet Finding
• Tip-tilt Error in Lyot Coronagraphs
• Notch Filter Masks: Practical Image Masks for Planet-Finding Coronagraphs
• Low Order Aberrations in Band-Limited Lyot Coronagraphs
• Using Notch-Filter Masks for High Contrast Imaging of Extrasolar Planets

Cited by in corpus (7)

• First On-Sky High Contrast Imaging with an Apodizing Phase Plate
• Comparative Lyot Coronagraphy with Extreme AO Systems
• On-Sky Demonstration of a Linear Band-limited Mask with Application to Visual Binary Stars
• Band-Limited Coronagraphs using a Halftone-dot process: design guidelines, manufacturing, and laboratory results
• Laboratory comparison of coronagraphic concepts under dynamical seeing and high-order adaptive optics correction
• Direct Detection of Planets Orbiting Large Angular Diameter Stars: Sensitivity of an Internally-Occulting Space-Based Coronagraph
• Band-Limited Coronagraphs using a halftone-dot process: II. Advances and laboratory results for arbitrary telescope apertures