Extremely unbalanced interferometer for precise wavefront control in stellar coronagraphy

Inna Shashkova; Boris Shkursky; Pavel Frolov; Yulia Bezymyannikova; Alexander Kiselev; Jun Nishikawa; Alexander Tavrov

doi:10.1117/1.JATIS.2.1.011011

24 December 2015 Extremely unbalanced interferometer for precise wavefront control in stellar coronagraphy

Inna Shashkova, Boris Shkursky, Pavel Frolov, Yulia Bezymyannikova, Alexander Kiselev, Jun Nishikawa, Alexander Tavrov

Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems, Vol. 2, Issue 1, 011011 (December 2015). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JATIS.2.1.011011

Abstract

We propose to use an extremely unbalanced interferometer (EUI) as a wavefront correcting input to a stellar coronagraph for direct exoplanet observation. Since wavefront error causes incomplete suppression of stellar light, an EUI aims to precisely correct the wavefront incident on the coronagraph to a level better than λ/5000 in the visible wavelength range. Compared to the previous unbalanced interferometer, which incorporated a nulling function, the proposed EUI does not introduce the nulling function. EUI does not use a precise deformable mirror. It increases the accuracy of a wavefront control effectively because of the coherent summation with an amplitude imbalance. It enables obtaining the desirable 10⁻⁹ coronagraphic contrast for Earth-like exoplanet imaging.

Citation Download Citation

Inna Shashkova, Boris Shkursky, Pavel Frolov, Yulia Bezymyannikova, Alexander Kiselev, Jun Nishikawa, and Alexander Tavrov "Extremely unbalanced interferometer for precise wavefront control in stellar coronagraphy," Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems 2(1), 011011 (24 December 2015). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JATIS.2.1.011011

Published: 24 December 2015

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