Apodized vortex coronagraph designs for segmented aperture telescopes

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new family of vortex coronagraphs with optimized apodizers designed to improve high-contrast imaging of exoplanets using large, segmented telescopes like the TMT, addressing aperture shape challenges.

Contribution

The paper proposes numerically-optimized gray-scale apodizers for vortex coronagraphs, enhancing their performance on segmented aperture telescopes.

Findings

Improved starlight suppression with new coronagraph design.

Enhanced imaging sensitivity for faint exoplanets.

Compatibility with large, segmented telescopes like TMT.

Abstract

Current state-of-the-art high contrast imaging instruments take advantage of a number of elegant coronagraph designs to suppress starlight and image nearby faint objects, such as exoplanets and circumstellar disks. The ideal performance and complexity of the optical systems depends strongly on the shape of the telescope aperture. Unfortunately, large primary mirrors tend to be segmented and have various obstructions, which limit the performance of most conventional coronagraph designs. We present a new family of vortex coronagraphs with numerically-optimized gray-scale apodizers that provide the sensitivity needed to directly image faint exoplanets with large, segmented aperture telescopes, including the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) as well as potential next-generation space telescopes.