The pupil-swapping coronagraph

Abstract

A new coronagraph that performs destructive interference between copies of the telescope pupil in which "slices" have been swapped is studied in this paper. A fourth-order "pupil-swapping coronagraph" is particularly attractive for direct imaging of extrasolar terrestrial planets: it achieves 100% throughput at 1.4 lambda/d on a square pupil (72.5% at 1.77 lambda/d on a circular pupil), is compatible with a central obstruction and spiders, l/d and delivers sharp images of off-axis sources. Direct detection of extrasolar terrestrial planets appears theoretically feasible on a 2 to 3 m visible-wavelength telescope in space.

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