Design of PIAA coronagraphs over square apertures

TL;DR

This paper explores the theoretical design and performance of PIAA coronagraphs using square apertures, including novel configurations with deformable mirrors that address manufacturing constraints but with some performance trade-offs.

Contribution

It introduces new PIAA configurations over square apertures using deformable mirrors, addressing manufacturing constraints and analyzing diffraction effects and contrast capabilities.

Findings

Pure PIAA systems can achieve high contrast in ray optics regime.

Pre and post apodisers can reach contrast of 10^10 despite diffraction.

Novel configurations with deformable mirrors are feasible but involve throughput loss.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a theoretical study pertaining to the feasibility of PIAA units using Deformable Mirrors. We begin by reviewing the general derivation of the design equations driving PIAA. We then show how to solve these equations for square apertures and show the performance of pure PIAA systems in the ray optics regime. We tie these design equations into the study of edge diffraction effects, and provide a general expression for the field after a full propagation through a PIAA coronagraph. Third, we illustrate how a combination of pre and post apodisers yields to a contrast of 10^10 even in the presence of diffractive effects, for configuration with neither wavefront errors or wavefront control. Finally we present novel PIAA configurations over square apertures which circumvent the constraints on the manufacturing of PIAA optics by inducing the apodisation with two square Deformable Mirrors (DM). Such solutions rely on pupil size smaller than currently envisioned static PIAA solutions and thus require aggressive pre and post-apodizing screens in order to mitigate for diffractive effect between the two mirrors. As a result they are associated to significant loss in performance, throughput in particular.