The Gemini Planet Imager: integration and status

The Gemini Planet Imager is a next-generation instrument for the direct detection and characterization of young warm exoplanets, designed to be an order of magnitude more sensitive than existing facilities. It combines a 1700-actuator adaptive optics system, an apodized-pupil Lyot coronagraph, a precision interferometric infrared wavefront sensor, and a integral field spectrograph. All hardware and software subsystems are now complete and undergoing integration and test at UC Santa Cruz. We will present test results on each subsystem and the results of end-to-end testing. In laboratory testing, GPI has achieved a raw contrast (without post-processing) of 10-6 5σ at 0.4”, and with multiwavelength speckle suppression, 2x10-7 at the same separation.

[1]  Jeffrey Chilcote,et al.  Test results for the Gemini Planet Imager data reduction pipeline , 2012, Other Conferences.

[2]  C. Marois,et al.  Accurate Astrometry and Photometry of Saturated and Coronagraphic Point Spread Functions , 2006, astro-ph/0604256.

[3]  Lisa A Poyneer,et al.  Fast wave-front reconstruction in large adaptive optics systems with use of the Fourier transform. , 2002, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[4]  Brian J. Bauman,et al.  The optical alignment of the Gemini planet imager adaptive optics bench , 2012, Other Conferences.

[5]  C. Marois,et al.  Efficient Speckle Noise Attenuation in Faint Companion Imaging , 2000 .

[6]  Randall D. Bartos,et al.  The Gemini Planet Imager calibration wavefront sensor instrument , 2010, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[7]  Thomas G. Bifano,et al.  A 4096 element continuous facesheet MEMS deformable mirror for high-contrast imaging , 2008, SPIE MOEMS-MEMS.

[8]  B. Oppenheimer,et al.  Astrometry and Photometry with Coronagraphs , 2006, astro-ph/0606136.

[9]  Russell B. Makidon,et al.  The Structure of High Strehl Ratio Point-Spread Functions , 2003 .

[10]  Alexis Carlotti,et al.  Gemini Planet Imager coronagraph testbed results , 2010, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[11]  Brian J. Bauman,et al.  The use of a high-order MEMS deformable mirror in the Gemini Planet Imager , 2011, MOEMS-MEMS.

[12]  Simon Thibault,et al.  Performance of the integral field spectrograph for the Gemini Planet Imager , 2012, Other Conferences.

[13]  Brian J. Bauman,et al.  An end-to-end polychromatic Fresnel propagation model of GPI , 2008, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[14]  Dmitry Savransky,et al.  Focal plane wavefront sensing and control for ground-based imaging , 2012, Other Conferences.

[15]  Bruce A. Macintosh,et al.  The Gemini Planet Imager: from science to design to construction , 2008, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[16]  James P. Lloyd,et al.  Spiders in Lyot Coronagraphs , 2005, astro-ph/0506564.

[17]  A. Boccaletti,et al.  A Giant Planet Imaged in the Disk of the Young Star β Pictoris , 2010, Science.

[18]  Christophe Dorrer,et al.  Calibrating IR optical densities for the Gemini Planet Imager extreme adaptive optics coronagraph apodizers , 2009, Optical Engineering + Applications.

[19]  Bruce Macintosh,et al.  Experimental Design for the Gemini Planet Imager , 2011, 1103.6085.

[20]  Kjetil Dohlen,et al.  SPHERE: a planet finder instrument for the VLT , 2006, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[21]  Christoph Baranec,et al.  Design considerations for low-light level low-Fresnel number optical systems. , 2009, Applied optics.

[22]  R. Soummer,et al.  APODIZED PUPIL LYOT CORONAGRAPHS FOR ARBITRARY APERTURES. III. QUASI-ACHROMATIC SOLUTIONS , 2011 .

[23]  Donald Gavel,et al.  New method of fabricating phase screens for simulated atmospheric turbulence , 2010, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[24]  W. Traub,et al.  A laboratory demonstration of the capability to image an Earth-like extrasolar planet , 2007, Nature.

[25]  Gautam Vasisht,et al.  Project 1640: the world's first ExAO coronagraphic hyperspectral imager for comparative planetary science , 2012, Other Conferences.