1,337 research outputs found
Laboratory validation of the dual-zone phase mask coronagraph in broadband light at the high-contrast imaging THD-testbed
Specific high contrast imaging instruments are mandatory to characterize
circumstellar disks and exoplanets around nearby stars. Coronagraphs are
commonly used in these facilities to reject the diffracted light of an observed
star and enable the direct imaging and spectroscopy of its circumstellar
environment. One important property of the coronagraph is to be able to work in
broadband light.
Among several proposed coronagraphs, the dual-zone phase mask coronagraph is
a promising solution for starlight rejection in broadband light. In this paper,
we perform the first validation of this concept in laboratory.
First, we recall the principle of the dual-zone phase mask coronagraph. Then,
we describe the high-contrast imaging THD testbed, the manufacturing of the
components and the quality-control procedures. Finally, we study the
sensitivity of our coronagraph to low-order aberrations (inner working angle
and defocus) and estimate its contrast performance. Our experimental broadband
light results are compared with numerical simulations to check agreement with
the performance predictions.
With the manufactured prototype and using a dark hole technique based on the
self-coherent camera, we obtain contrast levels down to between 5
and 17 in monochromatic light (640 nm). We also reach contrast
levels of between 7 and 17 in broadband
( nm, nm and %), which demonstrates the excellent chromatic performance of the dual-zone
phase mask coronagraph.
The performance reached by the dual-zone phase mask coronagraph is promising
for future high-contrast imaging instruments that aim at detecting and
spectrally characterizing old or light gaseous planets.Comment: 9 pages, 16 figure
CL7 - LA RECHERCHE EN ÉTHIQUE, UN OUTIL POUR DÉVELOPPER L’ÉDUCATION THÉRAPEUTIQUE EN ODONTOLOGIE PÉDIATRIQUE
Astrometric and photometric monitoring of GQ Lup and its sub-stellar companion
Neuhaeuser et al. (2005) presented direct imaging evidence for a sub-stellar
companion to the young T Tauri star GQ Lup. Common proper motion was highly
significant, but no orbital motion was detected. Faint luminosity, low gravity,
and a late-M/early-L spectral type indicated that the companion is either a
planet or a brown dwarf. We have monitored GQ Lup and its companion in order to
detect orbital and parallactic motion and variability in its brightness. We
also search for closer and fainter companions. We have taken six more images
with the VLT Adaptive Optics instrument NACO from May 2005 to Feb 2007, always
with the same calibration binary from Hipparcos for both astrometric and
photometric calibration. By adding up all the images taken so far, we search
for additional companions. The position of GQ Lup A and its companion compared
to a nearby non-moving background object varies as expected for parallactic
motion by about one pixel (2 \pi with parallax \pi). We could not find evidence
for variability of the GQ Lup companion in the K-band (standard deviation being
\pm 0.08 mag), which may be due to large error bars. No additional companions
are found with deep imaging. There is now exceedingly high significance for
common proper motion of GQ Lup A and its companion. In addition, we see for the
first time an indication for orbital motion (about 2 to 3 mas/yr decrease in
separation, but no significant change in the position angle), consistent with a
near edge-on or highly eccentric orbit. We measured the parallax for GQ Lup A
to be \pi = 6.4 \pm 1.9 mas (i.e. 156 \pm 50 pc) and for the GQ Lup companion
to be 7.2 \pm 2.1 mas (i.e. 139 \pm 45 pc), both consistent with being in the
Lupus I cloud and bound to each other.Comment: A&A in pres
Controlled study of malathion and d-phenothrin lotions for Pediculus humanus var capitis-infested schoolchildren
Uniform regularity for the Navier-Stokes equation with Navier boundary condition
We prove that there exists an interval of time which is uniform in the
vanishing viscosity limit and for which the Navier-Stokes equation with Navier
boundary condition has a strong solution. This solution is uniformly bounded in
a conormal Sobolev space and has only one normal derivative bounded in
. This allows to get the vanishing viscosity limit to the
incompressible Euler system from a strong compactness argument
Probing the centre of the large circumstellar disc in M17
We investigated the nature of the hitherto unresolved elliptical infrared
emission in the centre of the ~20000 AU disc silhouette in M 17. We combined
high-resolution JHKsL'M' band imaging carried out with NAOS/CONICA at the VLT
with [Fe II] narrow band imaging using SOFI at the NTT. The analysis is
supported by Spitzer/GLIMPSE archival data and by already published SINFONI/VLT
Integral Field Spectroscopy data. For the first time, we resolve the elongated
central infrared emission into a point-source and a jet-like feature that
extends to the northeast in the opposite direction of the recently discovered
collimated H2 jet. They are both orientated almost perpendicular to the disc
plane. In addition, our images reveal a curved southwestern emission nebula
whose morphology resembles that of the previously detected northeastern one.
Both nebulae are located at a distance of 1500 AU from the disc centre. We
describe the infrared point-source in terms of a protostar that is embedded in
circumstellar material producing a visual extinction of 60 <= Av <= 82. The
observed Ks band magnitude is equivalent to a stellar mass range of 2.8 Msun <=
Mstar <= 8 Msun adopting conversions for a main-sequence star. Altogether, we
suggest that the large M 17 accretion disc is forming an intermediate to
high-mass protostar. Part of the accreted material is expelled through a
symmetric bipolar jet/outflow.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted by MNRAS (16 May 2008
Grain Boundaries in Graphene on SiC(000) Substrate
Grain boundaries in epitaxial graphene on the SiC(000) substrate are
studied using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. All investigated
small-angle grain boundaries show pronounced out-of-plane buckling induced by
the strain fields of constituent dislocations. The ensemble of observations
allows to determine the critical misorientation angle of buckling transition
. Periodic structures are found among the flat
large-angle grain boundaries. In particular, the observed highly ordered grain boundary is assigned to the previously
proposed lowest formation energy structural motif composed of a continuous
chain of edge-sharing alternating pentagons and heptagons. This periodic grain
boundary defect is predicted to exhibit strong valley filtering of charge
carriers thus promising the practical realization of all-electric valleytronic
devices
Galaxies in Southern Bright Star Fields I. Near-infrared imaging
As a prerequisite for cosmological studies using adaptive optics techniques,
we have begun to identify and characterize faint sources in the vicinity of
bright stars at high Galactic latitudes. The initial phase of this work has
been a program of K_s imaging conducted with SOFI at the ESO NTT. From
observations of 42 southern fields evenly divided between the spring and autumn
skies, we have identified 391 additional stars and 1589 galaxies lying at
separations 60" from candidate guide stars in the magnitude range 9.0 R 12.4.
When analyzed as a "discrete deep field" with 131 arcmin^2 area, our dataset
gives galaxy number counts that agree with those derived previously over the
range 16 K_s 20.5. This consistency indicates that in the aggregate, our fields
should be suitable for future statistical studies. We provide our source
catalogue as a resource for users of large telescopes in the southern
hemisphere.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, accepted by A&A; Table 3 is available at
http://www.rzg.mpg.de/~ajb/data.html pending upload to CD
Analysis of on-sky MOAO performance of CANARY using natural guide stars
The first on-sky results obtained by CANARY, the multi-object adaptive optics (MOAO) demonstrator, are analysed. The data were recorded at the William Herschel Telescope, at the end of September 2010. We describe the command and calibrations algorithms used during the run and present the observing conditions. The processed data are MOAO-loop engaged or disengaged slopes buffers, comprising the synchronised measurements of the four natural guide stars (NGS) wavefront sensors running in parallel, and near infrared (IR) images. We describe the method we use to establish the error budget of CANARY. We are able to evaluate the tomographic and the open loop errors, having median values around 216 nm and 110 nm respectively. In addition, we identify an unexpected residual quasi-static field aberration term of mean value 110 nm. We present the detailed error budget analysed for three sets of data for three different asterisms. We compare the experimental budgets with the numerically simulated ones and demonstrate a good agreement. We find also a good agreement between the computed error budget from the slope buffers and the measured Strehl ratio on the IR images, ranging between 10% and 20% at 1530 nm. These results make us confident in our ability to establish the error budget of future MOAO instruments
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