Stabilising a nulling interferometer using optical path difference dithering

Gabor, Pavel; Chazelas, Bruno; Brachet, Frank; Ollivier, M.; Decaudin, M.; Jacquinod, S.; Labéque, A.; Léger, Alain

doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20077830

Cited by 6 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Using as reference beam the bright output of a pairwise nulling beam combiner, the amplitude and phase mismatches in the input beams can be extracted from the fringe pattern, allowing the reconstruction of the the stellar leakage. -A third solution has recently been proposed and tested at IAS (Gabor et al 2008). The principle is to successively apply two (<λ/2) opposite OPD offsets to one of the beams in order to derive the actual position of the minimum in the transmission map.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to relax these very stringent requirements, several techniques have been investigated (Lay 2005;Lane et al 2006;Gabor et al 2008). Discussion of these mitigation techniques is beyond the scope of this paper, where we assume that instability noise is sufficiently low to ensure the H 2 O spectroscopy at 7-μm of an Earth-like planet orbiting around a Sun located at 15 pc.…”

Section: Instability Noisementioning

confidence: 99%

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Nulling interferometry: impact of exozodiacal clouds on the performance of future life-finding space missions

Defrère¹,

Absil²,

Hartog

et al. 2010

A&A

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Context. Earth-sized planets around nearby stars are being detected for the first time by ground-based radial velocity and space-based transit surveys. This milestone is opening the path toward the definition of instruments able to directly detect the light from these planets, with the identification of bio-signatures as one of the main objectives. In that respect, both the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have identified nulling interferometry as one of the most promising techniques. The ability to study distant planets will however depend on the amount of exozodiacal dust in the habitable zone of the target stars. Aims. We assess the impact of exozodiacal clouds on the performance of an infrared nulling interferometer in the Emma X-array configuration. The first part of the study is dedicated to the effect of the disc brightness on the number of targets that can be surveyed and studied by spectroscopy during the mission lifetime. In the second part, we address the impact of asymmetric structures in the discs such as clumps and offset which can potentially mimic the planetary signal. Methods. We use the DarwinSIM software which was designed and validated to study the performance of space-based nulling interferometers. The software has been adapted to handle images of exozodiacal discs and to compute the corresponding demodulated signal. Results. For the nominal mission architecture with 2-m aperture telescopes, centrally symmetric exozodiacal dust discs about 100 times denser than the solar zodiacal cloud can be tolerated in order to survey at least 150 targets during the mission lifetime. Considering modeled resonant structures created by an Earth-like planet orbiting at 1 AU around a Sun-like star, we show that this tolerable dust density goes down to about 15 times the solar zodiacal density for face-on systems and decreases with the disc inclination. Conclusions. Whereas the disc brightness only affects the integration time, the presence of clumps or offset is more problematic and can hamper the planet detection. Based on the worst-case scenario for debris disc structures, the upper limit on the tolerable exozodiacal dust density is approximately 15 times the density of the solar zodiacal cloud. This gives the typical sensitivity that we will need to reach on exozodiacal discs in order to prepare the scientific programme of future Earth-like planet characterisation missions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Instability Noisementioning

confidence: 99%

Nulling interferometry: impact of exozodiacal clouds on the performance of future life-finding space missions

Defrère¹,

Absil²,

Hartog

et al. 2010

A&A

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“…11). It is a proposed improvement of the system, which was validated on the Synapse breadboard with a 3 × 10 −4 nulling in the K band [12]. In the IR band, it can provide two nulled outputs one of them being achromatic due to a symmetric layout of the beam splitter parts.…”

Section: The Fringe Sensormentioning

confidence: 99%

PEGASE, an infrared interferometer to study stellar environments and low mass companions around nearby stars

et al. 2009

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International audiencePEGASE is a mission dedicated to the exploration of the environment (including habitable zone) of young and solar-type stars (particularly those in the DARWIN catalogue) and the observation of low mass companions around nearby stars. It is a space interferometer project composed of three free flying spacecraft, respectively featuring two 40 cm siderostats and a beam combiner working in the visible and near infrared. It has been proposed to ESA as an answer to the first “Cosmic Vision” call for proposals, as an M mission. The concept also enables full-scale demonstration of space nulling interferometry operation for DARWIN

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“…Given the similarities of the photonic correlation with the principle of operation of a nulling interferometer, the phase stabilization scheme developed in this frame (Gabor et al 2008) could be adapted in the present case. However, stabilization through phase modulation, by the use of EOMs or a fiber stretcher, could only be applied on a limited optical path difference (OPD) range, which may be a limit for kilometric optical links.…”

Section: Signal Distribution and Phase Stabilizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a large bandwidth photonic correlator for infrared heterodyne interferometry

Bourdarot

Chatellus

Berger

2020

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Context. Infrared heterodyne interferometry has been proposed as a practical alternative for recombining a large number of telescopes over kilometric baselines in the mid-infrared. However, the current limited correlation capacities impose strong restrictions on the sensitivity of this appealing technique. Aims. In this paper, we propose to address the problem of transport and correlation of wide-bandwidth signals over kilometric distances by introducing photonic processing in infrared heterodyne interferometry. Methods. We describe the architecture of a photonic double-sideband correlator for two telescopes, along with the experimental demonstration of this concept on a proof-of-principle test bed. Results. We demonstrate the a posteriori correlation of two infrared signals previously generated on a two-telescope simulator in a double-sideband photonic correlator. A degradation of the signal-to-noise ratio of 13%, equivalent to a noise factor NF = 1.15, is obtained through the correlator, and the temporal coherence properties of our input signals are retrieved from these measurements. Conclusions. Our results demonstrate that photonic processing can be used to correlate heterodyne signals with a potentially large increase of detection bandwidth. These developments open the way to photonic processing of wide bandwidth signals for mid-infrared heterodyne interferometry, in particular for a large number of telescopes and for direct imager recombiners.

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Stabilising a nulling interferometer using optical path difference dithering

Cited by 6 publications

References 7 publications

Nulling interferometry: impact of exozodiacal clouds on the performance of future life-finding space missions

Nulling interferometry: impact of exozodiacal clouds on the performance of future life-finding space missions

PEGASE, an infrared interferometer to study stellar environments and low mass companions around nearby stars

Toward a large bandwidth photonic correlator for infrared heterodyne interferometry

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