Rotational Shearing Interferometer in Detection of the Super-Earth Exoplanets

Abstract

The astronomers and the general population are fascinated with the problem of exoplanet detection. By far the largest number of detected planets are the so-called Super Earths, relatively cold planets orbiting a large, red giant star, with diameters up to 1 AU, most of them at about one hundred light-year distance from us. A rotational shearing interferometer (RSI) was proposed for exoplanet detection. Here the detection capabilities of the RSI are expanded to include the case when the interferometer is not precisely aligned on the star. The theoretical analysis is applied to the case of a Super Earth with the red giant star, displaced from the origin to the Mercury, Earth, and the Martian orbit. For errors in alignment up to the Mercury orbit, the red giant star generates a slanted radiance pattern that may be eliminated using information processing. For larger distances, analysis in the Fourier domain is feasible.

Keywords

• opto-mechatronics
• optical design
• optical metrology
• extra-solar planet detection
• interferometric detection
• rotational shearing interferometer