A Binary Shaped Mask Coronagraph for a Segmented Pupil

TL;DR

This paper introduces a binary shaped mask coronagraph design suitable for telescopes with segmented pupils, reducing diffraction tails and enabling a full 360-degree discovery angle for exoplanet imaging.

Contribution

It presents a novel binary mask design that accommodates obscured and segmented telescope pupils, enhancing high-contrast imaging capabilities.

Findings

Reduces diffraction tails to two in the PSF

Enables 360-degree discovery angle through mask rotation

Applicable to various telescope designs including JWST and SUBARU

Abstract

We present the concept of a binary shaped mask coronagraph applicable to a telescope pupil including obscuration, based on previous works on binary shaped pupil mask by \citet{Kasdin2005} and \citet{Vanderbei1999}. Solutions with multi-barcode masks which "skip over" the obscuration are shown for various types of pupil of telescope, such as SUBARU, JWST, SPICA, and other examples. The number of diffraction tails in the point spread function of the coronagraphic image is reduced to two, thus offering a large discovery angle. The concept of mask rotation is also presented, which allows post-processing removal of diffraction tails and provides a 360$^{\circ}$ continuous discovery angle. It is suggested that the presented concept offers solutions which potentially allow large telescopes with segmented pupil in future to be used as platforms for an coronagraph.