13,808 research outputs found
Review of high-contrast imaging systems for current and future ground- and space-based telescopes I. Coronagraph design methods and optical performance metrics
The Optimal Optical Coronagraph (OOC) Workshop at the Lorentz Center in
September 2017 in Leiden, the Netherlands gathered a diverse group of 25
researchers working on exoplanet instrumentation to stimulate the emergence and
sharing of new ideas. In this first installment of a series of three papers
summarizing the outcomes of the OOC workshop, we present an overview of design
methods and optical performance metrics developed for coronagraph instruments.
The design and optimization of coronagraphs for future telescopes has
progressed rapidly over the past several years in the context of space mission
studies for Exo-C, WFIRST, HabEx, and LUVOIR as well as ground-based
telescopes. Design tools have been developed at several institutions to
optimize a variety of coronagraph mask types. We aim to give a broad overview
of the approaches used, examples of their utility, and provide the optimization
tools to the community. Though it is clear that the basic function of
coronagraphs is to suppress starlight while maintaining light from off-axis
sources, our community lacks a general set of standard performance metrics that
apply to both detecting and characterizing exoplanets. The attendees of the OOC
workshop agreed that it would benefit our community to clearly define
quantities for comparing the performance of coronagraph designs and systems.
Therefore, we also present a set of metrics that may be applied to theoretical
designs, testbeds, and deployed instruments. We show how these quantities may
be used to easily relate the basic properties of the optical instrument to the
detection significance of the given point source in the presence of realistic
noise.Comment: To appear in Proceedings of the SPIE, vol. 1069
SLM-based Digital Adaptive Coronagraphy: Current Status and Capabilities
Active coronagraphy is deemed to play a key role for the next generation of
high-contrast instruments, notably in order to deal with large segmented
mirrors that might exhibit time-dependent pupil merit function, caused by
missing or defective segments. To this purpose, we recently introduced a new
technological framework called digital adaptive coronagraphy (DAC), making use
of liquid-crystal spatial light modulators (SLMs) display panels operating as
active focal-plane phase mask coronagraphs. Here, we first review the latest
contrast performance, measured in laboratory conditions with monochromatic
visible light, and describe a few potential pathways to improve SLM
coronagraphic nulling in the future. We then unveil a few unique capabilities
of SLM-based DAC that were recently, or are currently in the process of being,
demonstrated in our laboratory, including NCPA wavefront sensing,
aperture-matched adaptive phase masks, coronagraphic nulling of multiple star
systems, and coherent differential imaging (CDI).Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, to appear in Proceedings of the SPIE, paper
10706-9
Review of small-angle coronagraphic techniques in the wake of ground-based second-generation adaptive optics systems
Small-angle coronagraphy is technically and scientifically appealing because
it enables the use of smaller telescopes, allows covering wider wavelength
ranges, and potentially increases the yield and completeness of circumstellar
environment - exoplanets and disks - detection and characterization campaigns.
However, opening up this new parameter space is challenging. Here we will
review the four posts of high contrast imaging and their intricate interactions
at very small angles (within the first 4 resolution elements from the star).
The four posts are: choice of coronagraph, optimized wavefront control,
observing strategy, and post-processing methods. After detailing each of the
four foundations, we will present the lessons learned from the 10+ years of
operations of zeroth and first-generation adaptive optics systems. We will then
tentatively show how informative the current integration of second-generation
adaptive optics system is, and which lessons can already be drawn from this
fresh experience. Then, we will review the current state of the art, by
presenting world record contrasts obtained in the framework of technological
demonstrations for space-based exoplanet imaging and characterization mission
concepts. Finally, we will conclude by emphasizing the importance of the
cross-breeding between techniques developed for both ground-based and
space-based projects, which is relevant for future high contrast imaging
instruments and facilities in space or on the ground.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figure
SPHERE: the exoplanet imager for the Very Large Telescope
Observations of circumstellar environments to look for the direct signal of
exoplanets and the scattered light from disks has significant instrumental
implications. In the past 15 years, major developments in adaptive optics,
coronagraphy, optical manufacturing, wavefront sensing and data processing,
together with a consistent global system analysis have enabled a new generation
of high-contrast imagers and spectrographs on large ground-based telescopes
with much better performance. One of the most productive is the
Spectro-Polarimetic High contrast imager for Exoplanets REsearch (SPHERE)
designed and built for the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. SPHERE
includes an extreme adaptive optics system, a highly stable common path
interface, several types of coronagraphs and three science instruments. Two of
them, the Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS) and the Infra-Red Dual-band Imager
and Spectrograph (IRDIS), are designed to efficiently cover the near-infrared
(NIR) range in a single observation for efficient young planet search. The
third one, ZIMPOL, is designed for visible (VIR) polarimetric observation to
look for the reflected light of exoplanets and the light scattered by debris
disks. This suite of three science instruments enables to study circumstellar
environments at unprecedented angular resolution both in the visible and the
near-infrared. In this work, we present the complete instrument and its on-sky
performance after 4 years of operations at the VLT.Comment: Final version accepted for publication in A&
Segmentation-Aware Convolutional Networks Using Local Attention Masks
We introduce an approach to integrate segmentation information within a
convolutional neural network (CNN). This counter-acts the tendency of CNNs to
smooth information across regions and increases their spatial precision. To
obtain segmentation information, we set up a CNN to provide an embedding space
where region co-membership can be estimated based on Euclidean distance. We use
these embeddings to compute a local attention mask relative to every neuron
position. We incorporate such masks in CNNs and replace the convolution
operation with a "segmentation-aware" variant that allows a neuron to
selectively attend to inputs coming from its own region. We call the resulting
network a segmentation-aware CNN because it adapts its filters at each image
point according to local segmentation cues. We demonstrate the merit of our
method on two widely different dense prediction tasks, that involve
classification (semantic segmentation) and regression (optical flow). Our
results show that in semantic segmentation we can match the performance of
DenseCRFs while being faster and simpler, and in optical flow we obtain clearly
sharper responses than networks that do not use local attention masks. In both
cases, segmentation-aware convolution yields systematic improvements over
strong baselines. Source code for this work is available online at
http://cs.cmu.edu/~aharley/segaware
Lyot-based Low Order Wavefront Sensor for Phase-mask Coronagraphs: Principle, Simulations and Laboratory Experiments
High performance coronagraphic imaging of faint structures around bright
stars at small angular separations requires fine control of tip, tilt and other
low order aberrations. When such errors occur upstream of a coronagraph, they
results in starlight leakage which reduces the dynamic range of the instrument.
This issue has been previously addressed for occulting coronagraphs by sensing
the starlight before or at the coronagraphic focal plane. One such solution,
the coronagraphic low order wave-front sensor (CLOWFS) uses a partially
reflective focal plane mask to measure pointing errors for Lyot-type
coronagraphs.
To deal with pointing errors in low inner working angle phase mask
coronagraphs which do not have a reflective focal plane mask, we have adapted
the CLOWFS technique. This new concept relies on starlight diffracted by the
focal plane phase mask being reflected by the Lyot stop towards a sensor which
reliably measures low order aberrations such as tip and tilt. This reflective
Lyot-based wavefront sensor is a linear reconstructor which provides high
sensitivity tip-tilt error measurements with phase mask coronagraphs.
Simulations show that the measurement accuracy of pointing errors with
realistic post adaptive optics residuals are approx. 10^-2 lambda/D per mode at
lambda = 1.6 micron for a four quadrant phase mask. In addition, we demonstrate
the open loop measurement pointing accuracy of 10^-2 lambda/D at 638 nm for a
four quadrant phase mask in the laboratory.Comment: 9 Pages, 11 Figures, to be published in PASP June 2014 issu
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