SCExAO as a precursor to an ELT exoplanet direct imaging instrument

The Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme AO (SCExAO) instrument consists of a high performance Phase Induced Amplitude Apodisation (PIAA) coronagraph combined with an extreme Adaptive Optics (AO) system operating in the near-infrared (H band). The extreme AO system driven by the 2000 element deformable mirror will allow for Strehl ratios >90% to be achieved in the H-band when it goes closed loop.

 

This makes the SCExAO instrument a powerful platform for high contrast imaging down to angular separations of the order of 1lambda/D and an ideal testbed for exploring coronagraphic techniques for ELTs. In this paper we report on the recent progress in regards to the development of the instrument, which includes the addition of a visible bench that makes use of the light at shorter wavelengths not currently utilized by SCExAO and closing the loop on the tip/tilt wavefront sensor.

 

We will also discuss several exciting guest instruments which will expand the capabilities of SCExAO over the next few years; namely CHARIS which is a integral field spectrograph as well as VAMPIRES, a visible aperture masking experiment based on polarimetric analysis of circumstellar disks. In addition we will elucidate the unique role extreme AO systems will play in enabling high precision radial velocity spectroscopy for the detection of small companions.

 

Nemanja Jovanovic, Olivier Guyon, Frantz martinache, Christophe Clergeon, Garima Singh, Sebastien Vievard, Tomoyuki Kudo, Vincent Garrel, Barnaby Norris, Peter Tuthill, Paul Stewart, Elsa huby, Guy Perrin, Sylvestre Lacour (Submitted on 1 Oct 2013)

 

Comments: 7 pages, 2 figures Proceedings of AO4ELTs3 conference, paper 13396, Florence, Italy, May 2013

 

Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)

 

Cite as: arXiv:1310.0476 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:1310.0476v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version) Submission history From: Nemanja Jovanovic [v1] Tue, 1 Oct 2013 20:05:55 GMT (1456kb)