Wide-spectral-band Nuller Insensitive to Finite Stellar Angular Diameter with a One-dimensional Diffraction-limited Coronagraph

Abstract

Potentially habitable planets around nearby stars less massive than solar-type stars could join targets of the spectroscopy of the planetary reflected light with future space telescopes. However, the orbits of most of these planets occur near the diffraction limit for 6 m diameter telescopes. Thus, while securing contrast-mitigation ability under a broad spectral bandwidth and a finite stellar angular diameter, we must maintain planetary throughput even at the diffraction-limited angles to be able to reduce the effect of the photon noise within a reasonable observation time. A one-dimensional diffraction-limited coronagraph (1DDLC) observes planets near the diffraction limit with undistorted point spread functions but has a finite-stellar diameter problem in wideband use. This study presents a method for wide-spectral-band nulling insensitive to stellar-angular-diameter by adding a fiber nulling with a Lyot-plane phase mask to the 1DDLC. Designing the pattern of the Lyot-plane mask function focuses on the parity of the amplitude spread function of light. Our numerical simulation shows that the planetary throughput (including the fiber-coupling efficiency) can reach about 11% for about 1.35- λ / D planetary separation almost independently of the spectral bandwidth. The simulation also shows the raw contrast of about 4 × 10 ^−8 (the spectral bandwidth of 25%) and 5 × 10 ^−10 (the spectral bandwidth of 10%) for 3 × 10 ^−2 λ / D stellar angular diameter. The planetary throughput depends on the planetary azimuthal angle, which may degrade the exploration efficiency compared to an isotropic throughput but is partially offset the wide spectral band.

Keywords

• Astrobiology
• Astronomical optics
• Direct imaging
• High contrast techniques
• Coronagraphic imaging