Speckle Temporal Stability in eXtreme Adaptive Optics Coronagraphic Images

TL;DR

This paper investigates the temporal stability of quasi-static speckles in high-contrast imaging, providing laboratory evidence and modeling of their evolution to improve the detection of faint stellar companions.

Contribution

It offers the first laboratory characterization of quasi-static speckle evolution and introduces a linear power law model for their temporal behavior in high-contrast imaging.

Findings

Quasi-static speckles evolve linearly over time.

Speckle noise is affected by wavefront errors at the angstrom/nanometer level.

The study provides a model for speckle evolution to aid in calibration.

Abstract

The major noise source limiting high-contrast imaging is due to the presence of quasi-static speckles. Speckle noise originates from wavefront errors caused by various independent sources, and it evolves on different timescales pending to their nature. An understanding of quasi-static speckles originating from instrumental errors is paramount for the search of faint stellar companions. Instrumental speckles average to a fixed pattern, which can be calibrated to a certain extent, but their temporal evolution ultimately limit this possibility. This study focuses on the laboratory evidence and characterization of the quasi-static pinned speckle phenomenon. Specifically, we examine the coherent amplification of the static speckle contribution to the noise variance in the scientific image, through its interaction with quasi-static speckles. The analysis of a time series of adaptively corrected, coronagraphic images recorded in the laboratory enables the characterization of the temporal stability of the residual speckle pattern in both direct and differential coronagraphic images. We estimate that spoiled and fast-evolving quasi-static speckles present in the system at the angstrom/nanometer level are affecting the stability of the static speckle noise in the final image after the coronagraph. The temporal evolution of the quasi-static wavefront error exhibits linear power law, which can be used in first order to model quasi-static speckle evolution in high-contrast imaging instruments.