The latest results from DICE (Detector Interferometric Calibration Experiment)

TL;DR

This paper reports on the development and testing of a high-precision centroid estimation system for the Theia astrometric mission, achieving 3e-5 pixel accuracy in a vacuum testbed to detect Earth-like exoplanets.

Contribution

It introduces a novel testbed with upgraded calibration and metrology systems that achieves unprecedented centroid precision for space-based astrometry.

Findings

Achieved 4e-4 pixel accuracy in pixel position calibration.

Obtained 6e-5 pixel astrometric accuracy after calibration.

Reached photon noise limited precision of 3e-5 pixel in static mode.

Abstract

Theia is an astrometric mission proposed to ESA in 2014 for which one of the scientific objectives is detecting Earth-like exoplanets in the habitable zone of nearby solar-type stars. This objective requires the capability to measure stellar centroids at the precision of 1e-5 pixel. Current state-of-the-art methods for centroid estimation have reached a precision of about 3e-5 pixel at two times Nyquist sampling, this was shown at the JPL by the VESTA experiment. A metrology system was used to calibrate intra and inter pixel quantum efficiency variations in order to correct pixelation errors. The Theia consortium is operating a testbed in vacuum in order to achieve 1e-5 pixel precision for the centroid estimation. The goal is to provide a proof of concept for the precision requirement of the Theia spacecraft. The testbed consists of two main sub-systems. The first one produces pseudo stars: a blackbody source is fed into a large core fiber and lights-up a pinhole mask in the object plane, which is imaged by a mirror on the CCD. The second sub-system is the metrology, it projects young fringes on the CCD. The fringes are created by two single mode fibers facing the CCD and fixed on the mirror. In this paper we present the latest experiments conducted and the results obtained after a series of upgrades on the testbed was completed. The calibration system yielded the pixel positions to an accuracy estimated at 4e-4 pixel. After including the pixel position information, an astrometric accuracy of 6e-5 pixel was obtained, for a PSF motion over more than 5 pixels. In the static mode (small jitter motion of less than 1e-3 pixel), a photon noise limited precision of 3e-5 pixel was reached.