High extinction optics with double wavefront sensing and control for direct detection of Earth-like exoplanets

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24360029
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Applied optics/Quantum optical engineering
• Research Institution: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
• Principal Investigator: NISHIKAWA Jun 国立天文台, 光赤外研究部, 助教 (70280568)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): KUROKAWA Takashi 東京農工大学, 工学研究院, 名誉教授 (40302913)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): MURAKAMI Naoshi 北海道大学, 工学研究科, 助教 (80450188) ; TAMURA Motohide 東京大学, 理学系研究科, 教授 (00260018)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 応用光学・量子光工学 / 超精密計測 / 波面センシング / 補償光学 / ナル干渉計 / 惑星探査 / 系外惑星 / 光学赤外線天文学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study aimed at development of high-precision wavefront measurement and control method in the high-contrast optics for direct observations of exoplanets, which consisted of the telescope, the deformable mirror 1, the pre-coronagraph, the deformable mirror 2, the main coronagraph, and the final focal-plane detector. When the mask of the main coronagraph is ejected, the wavefront aberrations of the telescope and the pre-coronagraph can be compensated using the deformable mirror1, and when the mask is inserted, the aberrations of the main coronagraph can be corrected using the deformable mirrors by the dark-hole control with the focal plane detector. The contrast will be improved along the two steps by the architecture suitable for a space telescope with a small number of detectors. We also developed the speckle area nulling (SAN) method which can extinguish wide area quickly without optical model.

Free Research Field

光赤外天文学・天文光学