Press Release

Pupil Masks for Spectrophotometry of Transiting Exoplanets

By SpaceRef Editor
July 28, 2017
Filed under , , ,

Satoshi Itoh, Taro Matsuo, Shohei Goda, Hiroshi Shibai, Takahiro Sumi
(Submitted on 27 Jul 2017)

Spectrophotometric stability, which is crucial in the spectral characterization of transiting exoplanets, is affected by photometric variations arising from field-stop loss in space telescopes with pointing jitter or primary mirror deformation. This paper focuses on a new method for removing slit-loss or field-stop-loss photometric variation through the use of a pupil mask. Two types of pupil function are introduced: the first uses conventional (e.g., Gaussian or hyper-Gaussian) apodizing patterns; whereas the second, which we call a block-shaped mask, employs a new type of pupil mask designed for high photometric stability. A methodology for the optimization of a pupil mask for transit observations is also developed. The block-shaped mask can achieve a photometric stability of 10−5 for a nearly arbitrary field-stop radius when the pointing jitter is smaller than approximately 0.7λ/D and a photometric stability of 10−6 at a pointing jitter smaller than approximately 0.5λ/D. The impact of optical aberrations and mask imperfections upon mask performance is also discussed.

Comments:    41 pages, 19 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in Astronomical Journal
Subjects:    Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as:    arXiv:1707.08703 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:1707.08703v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
Submission history
From: Satoshi Itoh 
[v1] Thu, 27 Jul 2017 04:30:11 GMT (6650kb,D)
https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.08703

SpaceRef staff editor.