Extreme adaptive optics planet imager: XAOPI
- Other:
- Coulter, Daniel R.
Abstract
Ground based adaptive optics is a potentially powerful technique for direct imaging detection of extrasolar planets. Turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere imposes some fundamental limits, but the large size of ground-based telescopes compared to spacecraft can work to mitigate this. We are carrying out a design study for a dedicated ultra-high-contrast system, the eXtreme Adaptive Optics Planet Imager (XAOPI), which could be deployed on an 8-10m telescope in 2007. With a 4096-actuator MEMS deformable mirror it should achieve Strehl >0.9 in the near-IR. Using an innovative spatially filtered wavefront sensor, the system will be optimized to control scattered light over a large radius and suppress artifacts caused by static errors. We predict that it will achieve contrast levels of 10^7-10^8 at angular separations of 0.2-0.8" around a large sample of stars (R<7-10), sufficient to detect Jupiter-like planets through their near-IR emission over a wide range of ages and masses. We are constructing a high-contrast AO testbed to verify key concepts of our system, and present preliminary results here, showing an RMS wavefront error of <1.3 nm with a flat mirror.
Additional Information
© 2003 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). This research was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract W-7405-ENG-48, and also supported in part by the National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center for Adaptive Optics, managed by the University of California at Santa Cruz under cooperative agreement No. AST–9876783. Support for this work was also provided by a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to the Regents of the University of California, Santa Cruz, on behalf of the Laboratory for Adaptive Optics. The content of the information does not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and no official endorsement should be inferred.Attached Files
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 93091
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20190221-110521847
- W-7405-ENG-48
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- AST-9876783
- NSF
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Created
-
2019-02-28Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Series Name
- Proceedings of SPIE
- Series Volume or Issue Number
- 5170