Using Ground-Based Telescopes to Mature Key Technologies and Advance Science for Future NASA Exoplanet Direct Imaging Missions

TL;DR

Ground-based telescopes are crucial for advancing exoplanet imaging technologies and science, supporting future NASA missions through adaptive optics, specialized instruments, and atmospheric modeling validation.

Contribution

The paper highlights the ongoing and future roles of ground-based telescopes in technological development and scientific discovery for upcoming NASA exoplanet imaging missions.

Findings

Extreme adaptive optics will improve wavefront control and coronagraphy.

Infrared instruments on large telescopes may image rocky exoplanets.

Ground-based efforts will support mission planning and planet characterization.

Abstract

Ground-based telescopes have been playing a leading role in exoplanet direct imaging science and technological development for the past two decades and will continue to have an indispensable role for the next decade and beyond. Extreme adaptive optics (AO) systems will advance focal-plane wavefront control and coronagraphy, augmenting the performance of and mitigating risk for WFIRST-CGI, while validating performance requirements and motivating improvements to atmosphere models needed to unambiguously characterize solar system-analogues with HabEx/LUVOIR. Specialized instruments for Extremely Large Telescopes may deliver the first thermal infrared images of rocky planets around Sun-like stars, providing HabEx/LUVOIR with numerous exo-Earth candidates and key ancillary information that can help clarify whether the planets are habitable.