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20242026
most citedPhasing the Giant Magellan Telescope: Lab Experiments and First On-sky Demonstration

5 citations · 6 across the 15 of their papers we have counts for

collaborators

24 papers

astro-ph.IM2026

No need to modulate: On-sky results of a Neural Network enhanced pyramid wavefront sensor and prospects for the ELTs

Rico Landman, Liam Koning, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert +20

One of the main limitations of ground-based extreme adaptive optics systems (XAO) is the balance between the temporal and photon noise error. The unmodulated Pyramid Wavefront Sens…

astro-ph.IM2026

Digging dark holes on-sky with the Self-Coherent Camera: Preliminary results

Elena Tonucci, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Jared R. Males +17

Current high-contrast imaging instruments are limited by wavefront errors originating from non-common path aberrations (NCPAs) due, for example, to manufacturing errors in the opti…

astro-ph.IM2026

On-sky demonstration of self-learning predictive control with MagAO-X

Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Jared R. Males, Parker T. Johnson +13

Direct imaging of exoplanets is very tricky and requires extremely well corrected wavefronts. Especially low-order order modes are detrimental to the performance of coronagraphs at…

astro-ph.IM2026

Sub-diffraction-limited coronagraphic imaging with nano-printed PIAACMC phase masks

Elena Tonucci, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Warren B. Foster +22

Imaging Earth-like exoplanets in the habitable zone of their host star is among the main science objectives of future ground-based and space-based observatories. However, the extre…

astro-ph.IM2026

Demonstration of simultaneous PIAA- coronagraphy and wavefront sensing using a single metasurface-based focal-plane optic

Dhwanil Patel, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Skyler Palatnick +23

Controlling residual wavefront aberrations downstream of an extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) system is a major challenge in high-contrast imaging. These aberrations produce quasi-sta…

astro-ph.IM2026

The Roman Coronagraph Community Participation Program: pre-launch reference star list and impact of reference star properties on post-processing performance

Justin Hom, Schuyler G. Wolff, Jessica Gersh-Range +51

The upcoming Roman Coronagraph will be the first high-contrast instrument in space capable of high-order wavefront sensing and control technologies, a critical technology demonstra…

astro-ph.IM2026

Comparing realtime optical gain measurement and methods on MagAO-X

Eden McEwen, Jared R. Males, Olivier Guyon +20

A lingering technical challenge for pyramid wavefront sensors (PyWFS) is their change in response between calibration and correction residuals, a quantity known as optical gain (OG…

astro-ph.IM2026

Closed-loop Atmospheric Dispersion Correction for High-Contrast Imaging with MagAO-X

Katie Twitchell, Sebastiaan Haffert, Jared R. Males +17

Incoming starlight is refracted as it enters Earth's atmosphere from the vacuum of space. The wavelength-dependence of atmospheric refraction causes elongation of the broadband PSF…

astro-ph.IM2026

windsoCC: reconstructing the wind-driven halo in MagAO-X images using wavefront sensor telemetry

Jay K. Kueny, Jared R. Males, Alycia J. Weinberger +16

The wind-driven halo (WDH) is a persistent, low spatial frequency noise artifact that arises due to the servo-lag error inherent to all adaptive optics (AO) instruments. Spatial fi…

astro-ph.IM2026

Sensor fusion on MagAO-X: real time vibration control using accelerometers

Parker T. Johnson, Jared R. Males, Povilas Palunas +16

Mechanical vibrations are a significant source of residual wavefront error (WFE) in adaptive optics (AO) systems, limiting the performance of high-contrast imaging instruments. We…

astro-ph.IM2026

The eXtreme Wavefront Control Toolkit: High-Contrast Imaging Instrument Control for Ground and Space-Based Coronagraphs

Jared R. Males, Joseph D. Long, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert +16

We present the eXtreme Wavefront Control Toolkit (XWCTk) instrument control software system developed for the MagAO-X extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) instrument. The XWCTk is built…

astro-ph.IM2026

Freezing the speckles: focal plane wavefront sensing with the spatially-clipped self-coherent camera

Joshua Liberman, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Jared R. Males +8

The next generation of Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) and the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) require active speckle suppression to directly image exo-Earths. Focal plane wav…

astro-ph.IM2026

Visible-Light High-Contrast Polarimetry with MagAO-X: Characterization and Initial Results

Miles Lucas, Laird Close, Jared R. Males +22

MagAO-X is a visible-light extreme adaptive optics instrument on the 6.5 meter Magellan Clay Telescope, recently upgraded to enable high-contrast polarimetric differential imaging…

astro-ph.IM2026

On-sky dark hole diggin' with implicit Electric Field Conjugation on MagAO-X

S. Y. Haffert, J. Liberman, J. R. Males +17

Direct spectroscopy is very promising approach to characterizing the atmospheres of nearby rocky exoplanets. Non-common path aberrations (NCPA) are differential aberrations between…

astro-ph.EP2026★ 1 cited

A Multiband Study of the HR 4796A Disk in the Optical Using MagAO-X

Jay K. Kueny, Alycia J. Weinberger, Zhe-Yu Daniel Lin +18

We present total intensity images of the debris disk around HR 4796A from observations spanning 2023 to 2025 with the Magellan extreme adaptive optics instrument (MagAO-X). We dete…

astro-ph.IM2026

ffortissimo: A Freeform Forward-Modeling Pipeline for High-Contrast Images of Circumstellar Disks Based on Automatic Differentiation

Jay K. Kueny, Joseph D. Long, Jared R. Males +16

Modeling circumstellar disks in the traditional sense carries the assumption that the dust density distribution can be accurately described with a fixed parametric form. Furthermor…

astro-ph.IM2026

Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization Complex Mask Coronagraph (PIAACMC) on-sky demonstration with MagAO-X

Elena Tonucci, Sebastiaan Haffert, Warren Foster +18

Advancing the technological development of small inner working angle (IWA) coronagraphs is essential to enabling high-contrast imaging of temperate exoplanets with future extremely…

astro-ph.EP2025

Wide Separation Planets In Time (WISPIT): Discovery of a Gap H Protoplanet WISPIT 2b with MagAO-X

Laird M. Close, Richelle F. van Capelleveen, Gabriel Weible +34

Excellent (<25 mas) H images of the star TYC 5709-354-1 led to the discovery of a rare H protoplanet. This star was discovered by the WISPIT survey to have a large multi-ri…

astro-ph.EP2025

Discovery of H Emission from a Protoplanet Candidate Around the Young Star 2MASS J16120668-3010270 with MagAO-X

Jialin Li, Laird M. Close, Feng Long +32

2MASS J16120668-3010270 (hereafter 2MJ1612) is a young M0 star that hosts a protoplanetary disk in the Upper Scorpious star-forming region. Recent ALMA observations of 2MJ1612 show…

astro-ph.EP2025

A planetary-mass candidate imaged in the Young Suns Exoplanet Survey

Pengyu Liu, Matthew A. Kenworthy, Beth A. Biller +26

Directly imaged exoplanets in wide orbits challenge current gas giant formation theories. They need to form quickly and acquire enough material before the disk dissipates, which ca…

physics.optics2025

Scheimpflug cameras for range-resolved observations of the atmospheric effects on laser propagation

Nathan Meraz, Megan Birch, Ian Winski +4

This paper presents the development of Scheimpflug cameras for lidar and remote sensing with an emphasis on active and passive range-finding. Scheimpflug technology uses a tilted c…

astro-ph.IM2025★ 5 cited

Phasing the Giant Magellan Telescope: Lab Experiments and First On-sky Demonstration

Maggie Y. Kautz, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Laird M. Close +21

The large apertures of the upcoming generation of Giant Segmented Mirror Telescopes will enable unprecedented angular resolutions that scale as /D and higher sensitivi…

astro-ph.IM2024

More data than you want, less data than you need: machine learning approaches to starlight subtraction with MagAO-X

Joseph D. Long, Jared R. Males, Laird M. Close +17

High-contrast imaging data analysis depends on removing residual starlight from the host star to reveal planets and disks. Most observers do this with principal components analysis…

astro-ph.IM2024

MagAO-X: Commissioning Results and Status of Ongoing Upgrades

Jared R. Males, Laird M. Close, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert +20

MagAO-X is the coronagraphic extreme adaptive optics system for the 6.5 m Magellan Clay Telescope. We report the results of commissioning the first phase of MagAO-X. Components now…