RING-APODIZED VORTEX CORONAGRAPHS FOR OBSCURED TELESCOPES. I. TRANSMISSIVE RING APODIZERS

Journal Article · Fri Nov 01 04:00:00 EDT 2013 · Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0067-0049/209/1/7· OSTI ID:22273277

Mawet, D. ^[1]; Pueyo, L. ^[2]; Carlotti, A. ^[3]; Mennesson, B.; Serabyn, E.; Wallace, J. K. ^[4]

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1. European Southern Observatory, Alonso de Cordóva 3107 Vitacura, Santiago (Chile)
2. Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
3. Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Olden Street, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States)
4. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 (United States)

The vortex coronagraph (VC) is a new generation small inner working angle (IWA) coronagraph currently offered on various 8 m class ground-based telescopes. On these observing platforms, the current level of performance is not limited by the intrinsic properties of actual vortex devices, but by wavefront control residuals and incoherent background (e.g., thermal emission of the sky), or the light diffracted by the imprint of the secondary mirror and support structures on the telescope pupil. In the particular case of unfriendly apertures (mainly large central obscuration) when very high contrast is needed (e.g., direct imaging of older exoplanets with extremely large telescopes or space-based coronagraphs), a simple VC, like most coronagraphs, cannot deliver its nominal performance because of the contamination due to the diffraction from the obscured part of the pupil. Here, we propose a novel yet simple concept that circumvents this problem. We combine a vortex phase mask in the image plane of a high-contrast instrument with a single pupil-based amplitude ring apodizer, tailor-made to exploit the unique convolution properties of the VC at the Lyot-stop plane. We show that such a ring-apodized vortex coronagraph (RAVC) restores the perfect attenuation property of the VC regardless of the size of the central obscuration, and for any (even) topological charge of the vortex. More importantly, the RAVC maintains the IWA and conserves a fairly high throughput, which are signature properties of the VC.

• OSTI ID: 22273277
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 209; ISSN 0067-0049; ISSN APJSA2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
AMPLITUDES
APERTURES
ASTRONOMY
ASTROPHYSICS
ATTENUATION
DIFFRACTION
OPTICS
PERFORMANCE
RESOLUTION
STARS
STELLAR CORONAE
TELESCOPES
VISIBLE RADIATION
VORTICES