Kavli Affiliate: Bruce Macintosh
| First 5 Authors: Ashai Moreno, Vincent Chambouleyron, Rebecca M. Jensen-Clem, Daren Dillon, Philip M. Hinz
| Summary:
The Santa Cruz Extreme AO Lab (SEAL) testbed is an optical bench meant to
design and develop new wavefront control techniques for high-contrast imaging
for segmented telescopes. These techniques allow for astronomical efficiency in
exoplanet imaging and characterization. SEAL consists of several wavefront
sensors (WFS) and deformable mirrors (DM) that are currently performing
techniques like predictive control or non-linear reconstruction. In this paper,
we present the implementation and characterization of a new coronagraphic
branch on SEAL and assess the contrast limitations in the testbed. For our
coronagraphic branch, we used a vector vortex coronagraph which has high
contrast performance. The W. M. Keck Observatory also uses a vortex
coronagraph, allowing us to compare the limitations with our own coronagraph.
We relied on the testbed and simulations of the vortex coronagraph to compare
performance with expected ones. To create a more reliable simulation, we also
injected in our numerical model data collected by a Zernike Wavefront sensor
(ZWFS) used to perform fine wavefront sensing on the bench. Now that the
coronagraphic branch is aligned on SEAL, we will be able to use contrast as a
metric for the performance of wavefront control methods on the bench.
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