13 December 2022 AOTF-based spectro-polarimeter for observing Earth as an exoplanet
Bhavesh Jaiswal, Swapnil Singh, Anand Jain, Sankarasubramanian Kasiviswanathan, Anuj Nandi
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Abstract

Earth is the only known habitable planet and it serves as a testbed to benchmark the observations of temperate and more Earth-like exoplanets. It is required to observe the disk-integrated signatures of Earth for a large range of phase angles, resembling the observations of an exoplanet. In this work, an acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF)-based experiment is designed to observe the spectro-polarimetric signatures of Earth. The results of spectroscopic and polarimetric laboratory calibration are presented here along with a brief overview of a possible instrument configuration. Based on the results of the spectro-polarimetric calibration, simulations are carried out to optimize the instrument design for the expected signal levels for various observing conditions. The usefulness of an AOTF-based spectro-polarimeter is established from this study, and it is found that, in the present configuration, the instrument can achieve a polarimetric accuracy of <0.3 % for linear polarization for an integration time of 100 ms or larger. The design configuration of the instrument and the planning of conducting such observations from Lunar orbit are discussed.

© 2022 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)
Bhavesh Jaiswal, Swapnil Singh, Anand Jain, Sankarasubramanian Kasiviswanathan, and Anuj Nandi "AOTF-based spectro-polarimeter for observing Earth as an exoplanet," Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems 8(4), 044007 (13 December 2022). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JATIS.8.4.044007
Received: 7 May 2022; Accepted: 21 November 2022; Published: 13 December 2022
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KEYWORDS
Acoustooptic tunable filters

Polarization

Equipment

Exoplanets

Calibration

Clouds

Planets

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