Cold Stop and Lyot Stop Designs for a New Infrared Exoplanet Imager at Keck Observatory

TL;DR

This paper designs and compares cold and Lyot stops for the SCALES infrared exoplanet imager at Keck Observatory, optimizing throughput and minimizing thermal emission to enhance direct exoplanet imaging.

Contribution

It introduces and evaluates three cold stop designs and one Lyot stop for SCALES, optimizing their dimensions considering pupil nutation and mirror emissivity.

Findings

Optimal cold stop dimensions improve throughput.

Designs effectively reduce thermal background emission.

Comparison shows best configuration balances throughput and emission suppression.

Abstract

Santa Cruz Array of Lenslets for Exoplanet Spectroscopy (SCALES) is an instrument being designed for direct imaging of exoplanets in the infrared with the Adaptive Optics System of the W.M. Keck Observatory. The performance of SCALES will be largely affected by thermal transmission and emission from various sources, including the adaptive optics and instrument structures. The placement of a cold stop and a Lyot stop can preserve maximal and stable throughput while limiting the emission of instrument structures such as primary mirror segment gaps, secondary structures, and spider arms. Here we propose and compare three cold stops, a circular inner mask paired with circular, hexagonal, and serrated outer masks, as well as one Lyot stop design. Taking into account the pupil nutation and mirror emissivity, we model the throughput and the background emission for all designs to optimize the dimensions of the cold stop and the Lyot stop.