Extreme adaptive optics planet imager: XAOPI

Bruce A. Macintosh; James Graham; Lisa Poyneer; Gary Sommargren; Julia Wilhelmsen; Don Gavel; Steve Jones; Paul Kalas; James P. Lloyd; Russ Makidon; Scot Olivier; Dave Palmer; Jennifer Patience; Marshall Perrin; Scott Severson; Andrew Sheinis; Anand Sivaramakrishnan; Mitch Troy; J. Kent Wallace

doi:10.1117/12.506836

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19 November 2003 Extreme adaptive optics planet imager: XAOPI

Bruce A. Macintosh, James Graham, Lisa Poyneer, Gary Sommargren, Julia Wilhelmsen, Don Gavel, Steve Jones, Paul Kalas, James P. Lloyd, Russ Makidon, Scot Olivier, Dave Palmer, Jennifer Patience, Marshall Perrin, Scott Severson, Andrew Sheinis, Anand Sivaramakrishnan, Mitch Troy, J. Kent Wallace

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Proceedings Volume 5170, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.506836
Event: Optical Science and Technology, SPIE's 48th Annual Meeting, 2003, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Ground based adaptive optics is a potentially powerful technique for direct imaging detection of extrasolar planets. Turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere imposes some fundamental limits, but the large size of ground-based telescopes compared to spacecraft can work to mitigate this. We are carrying out a design study for a dedicated ultra-high-contrast system, the eXtreme Adaptive Optics Planet Imager (XAOPI), which could be deployed on an 8-10m telescope in 2007. With a 4096-actuator MEMS deformable mirror it should achieve Strehl >0.9 in the near-IR. Using an innovative spatially filtered wavefront sensor, the system will be optimized to control scattered light over a large radius and suppress artifacts caused by static errors. We predict that it will achieve contrast levels of 10⁷-10⁸ at angular separations of 0.2-0.8" around a large sample of stars (R<7-10), sufficient to detect Jupiter-like planets through their near-IR emission over a wide range of ages and masses. We are constructing a high-contrast AO testbed to verify key concepts of our system, and present preliminary results here, showing an RMS wavefront error of <1.3 nm with a flat mirror.

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Bruce A. Macintosh, James Graham, Lisa Poyneer, Gary Sommargren, Julia Wilhelmsen, Don Gavel, Steve Jones, Paul Kalas, James P. Lloyd, Russ Makidon, Scot Olivier, Dave Palmer, Jennifer Patience, Marshall Perrin, Scott Severson, Andrew Sheinis, Anand Sivaramakrishnan, Mitch Troy, and J. Kent Wallace "Extreme adaptive optics planet imager: XAOPI", Proc. SPIE 5170, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets, (19 November 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.506836

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