Diffraction Analysis of Two‐dimensional Pupil Mapping for High‐Contrast Imaging

Abstract

Pupil-mapping is a technique whereby a uniformly-illuminated input pupil, such as from starlight, can be mapped into a non-uniformly illuminated exit pupil, such that the image formed from this pupil will have suppressed sidelobes, many orders of magnitude weaker than classical Airy ring intensities. Pupil mapping is therefore a candidate technique for coronagraphic imaging of extrasolar planets around nearby stars. Unlike most other high-contrast imaging techniques, pupil mapping is lossless and preserves the full angular resolution of the collecting telescope. So, it could possi-bly give the highest signal-to-noise ratio of any proposed single-telescope system for detecting extrasolar planets. Prior analyses based on pupil-to-pupil ray-tracing indi-cate that a planet fainter than 10 −10 times its parent star, and as close as about 2λ/D, should be detectable. In this paper, we describe the results of careful diffraction analy-sis of pupil mapping systems. These results reveal a serious unresolved issue. Namely, high-contrast pupil mappings distribute light from very near the edge of the first pupil to a broad area of the second pupil and this dramatically amplifies diffraction-based edge effects resulting in a limiting attainable contrast of about 10 −5 . We hope that by identifying this problem others will provide a solution.