Status Report

Observing Exoplanets with High-Dispersion Coronagraphy. II. Demonstration of an Active Single-Mode Fiber Injection Unit

By SpaceRef Editor
March 5, 2017
Filed under , , ,

High-dispersion coronagraphy (HDC) optimally combines high contrast imaging techniques such as adaptive optics/wavefront control plus coronagraphy to high spectral resolution spectroscopy.

HDC is a critical pathway towards fully characterizing exoplanet atmospheres across a broad range of masses from giant gaseous planets down to Earth-like planets. In addition to determining the molecular composition of exoplanet atmospheres, HDC also enables Doppler mapping of atmosphere inhomogeneities (temperature, clouds, wind), as well as precise measurements of exoplanet rotational velocities. Here, we demonstrate an innovative concept for injecting the directly-imaged planet light into a single-mode fiber, linking a high-contrast adaptively-corrected coronagraph to a high-resolution spectrograph (diffraction-limited or not).

Our laboratory demonstration includes three key milestones: close-to-theoretical injection efficiency, accurate pointing and tracking, on-fiber coherent modulation and speckle nulling of spurious starlight signal coupling into the fiber. Using the extreme modal selectivity of single-mode fibers, we also demonstrated speckle suppression gains that outperform conventional image-based speckle nulling by at least two orders of magnitude.

Dimitri Mawet, Garreth Ruane, Wenhao Xuan, Daniel Echeverri, Nikita Klimovich, Michael Randolph, Jason Fucik, James K. Wallace, Ji Wang, Gautam Vasisht, Richard Dekany, Betrand Mennesson, Elodie Choquet, Jacques-Robert Delorme, Eugene Serabyn
(Submitted on 2 Mar 2017)

Comments:    10 pages, 7 figures, accepted by ApJ
Subjects:    Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
Cite as:    arXiv:1703.00583 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:1703.00583v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Ji Wang
[v1] Thu, 2 Mar 2017 01:47:18 GMT (10029kb,D)
https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.00583

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