Compact refractive adaptive optics (CRAO) is a visible compact adaptive optics (AO) system optimized for small telescopes. It was mounted on the 1.3 m Araki telescope of Koyama Astronomical Observatory (KAO) in Kyoto Sangyo University, Japan. CRAO aims to improve the natural seeing 3” to 0.8” at 500 nm at the KAO site. Thus, it needs a large format and highly frequent camera for wide field survey (WFS) and a largely segmented depth map (DM) because the natural seeing ∼3” at the KAO site is especially poor for astronomical observations. To improve the performance of CRAO with a new WFS and DM, we searched for the optimal AO parameters (the number of WFS subapertures (NWFS), the number of DM actuators (NDM), and the loop frequency (fL) with two AO simulators using yao and COMPASS. Consequently, we found that NWFS > 12×12, NDM > 80, and fL > 800 Hz are necessary to achieve the full width at half maximum (FWHM) < 0.8” for point spread function (PSF) under the KAO site’s atmospheric conditions. Finally, we calculated the limiting magnitude (Vlim) with commercially available sensors for WFS and DMs. By combining ORCA-Lightning (Hamamatsu Photonics) and DM97-15 (ALPAO), a deeper limiting magnitude (Vlim ∼ 4.4) can be achieved, even with a 1 m-class telescope.
The atmospheric characterization of habitable candidates is one of the effective approaches for search for life out of the solar system. However, it is much hard by high planet-star flux contrast, 10-8 - 10-10 . A coronagraphic mask proposed by Itoh & Matsuo (2020) can suppress host stellar light but is imposed by a strict wavelength range limit of 0.3%. A spectroscopic coronagraph that combines the diffraction-limited coronagraph with a spectrograph is expected to achieve enlarges the effective bandwidth. On the other hand, a non-common path error, which is induced by the spectrograph, could limit the achievable contrast. We designed a high-accuracy spectrograph motivated for the spectroscopic coronagraph and measured its wavefront error. The common path error is 9.9 nm RMS, which is mostly caused by the alignment error between the convex grating and spherical mirror of the spectrograph. The achievable contrast of the spectroscopic coronagraph was also estimated from the non-common path error measurement. We found that the contrast of 10-8 could be achieved with a bandwidth of 5%, which is a promising result as the first step.
Recently, we have proposed a fourth-order coronagraph with inner working angles (IWA) of ∼ 1λ/D applicable with segmented telescopes, by deriving some complex-valued focal-plane mask patterns with the value between the interval [-1,1]. The mask pattern is implementable achromatically with a custom-patterned half-waveplate sandwiched between two linear polarizers orthogonal to each other. To enhance the system’s spectral bandwidth, we are now investigating the methods from various perspectives. One method to widen the system’s spectral bandwidth is to disperse point spread functions (PSF) incident to the focal-plane mask to the direction orthogonal to the mask pattern using a diffraction grating. Because the mask pattern is one-dimensional, we can optimize the mask pattern for each PSF dispersed by each wavelength (spectroscopic coronagraph). Another method focuses on the fact that the stellar leak due to a wide spectral bandwidth is flat at the Lyot stop and thus reducible with the successive use of the multiple coronagraph systems. Because the practical successive use of the multiple coronagraph systems requires a high off-axis throughput of the focal-plane mask, we derived new mask patterns by modifying the original pattern. This method can bring additional enhance of spatial resolution, although the current optimization limits the working angle to the separation angles of 0.7–1.4λ/D (super-resolution coronagraph or double coronagraph). Our fundamental simulation shows that both the methods can deliver a contrast of 10−10 at wavelengths of 650–750nm.
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