2019MNRAS.489.1291S -
Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 489, 1291-1303 (2019/October-2)
Nulling at short wavelengths: theoretical performance constraints and a demonstration of faint companion detection inside the diffraction limit with a rotating-baseline interferometer.
SERABYN E., MENNESSON B., MARTIN S., LIEWER K. and KUHN J.
Abstract (from CDS):
The Palomar Fiber Nuller (PFN) is a rotating-baseline nulling interferometer that enables high-accuracy near-infrared (NIR) nulling observations with full azimuth coverage. To achieve NIR null-depth accuracies of several x 10–4, the PFN uses a common-mode optical system to provide a high degree of symmetry, single-mode-fibre beam combination to reduce sensitivity to pointing and wavefront errors, extreme adaptive optics to stabilize the fibre coupling and the cross-aperture fringe phase, rapid signal calibration and camera readout to minimize temporal effects, and a statistical null-depth fluctuation analysis to relax the phase stabilization requirement. Here, we describe the PFN's final design and performance and provide a demonstration of faint-companion detection by means of nulling-baseline rotation, as originally envisioned for space-based nulling interferometry. Specifically, the Ks-band null-depth rotation curve measured on the spectroscopic binary η Peg reflects both a secondary star 1.08 ± 0.06 x 10–2 as bright as the primary, and a null-depth contribution of 4.8 ± 1.6 x 10–4 due to the size of the primary star. With a 30 mas separation at the time, η Peg B was well inside both the telescope's diffraction-limited beam diameter (88 mas) and typical coronagraphic inner working angles. Finally, we discuss potential improvements that can enable a number of small-angle nulling observations on larger telescopes.
Abstract Copyright:
© 2019 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society
Journal keyword(s):
instrumentation: high angular resolution - instrumentation: interferometers - (stars:) binaries: spectroscopic
Simbad objects:
4
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